Tim to give lecture at Transport Operations Research Group (TORG), Newcastle University

On Wednesday  11th December 2013, Tim will be giving a presentation in Newcastle on "Working at the Interface of Air Quality, Climate Change, Public Health and Energy – Issues and Opportunities"

 

At the present time the future of air quality policy is looking increasingly uncertain.  For much of the last decade and a half the UK government had convinced itself that the problem would be resolved by now through technological measures.  However, following widespread exceedences of the EU limit values for NO₂ and PM10 the government seems more interested in weakening the European legislation, or pulling out of the EU altogether, than in making the changes that would be necessary to tackle our air pollution problems.  It is clear that the single issue approach to air pollution taken to date has led to a primary focus on tightening  vehicle emission standards, and that this has failed.  To develop a new approach to addressing air pollution will require dealing with our transport system – the main source of our existing air pollution problems.  Fortunately, air quality is not the only problem associated with transport, but to develop and implement the radical solutions necessary to deal with the various problems will require significant collaboration over policy and scientific boundaries in respect of air pollution, climate change, public health and energy.  This presentation will cover work from Tim’s current EPSRC/Energy Programme funded projects Disruption (www.disruptionproject.net) and MOT (Motoring and vehicle Ownership Trends in the UK www.tinyurl.com/MOTproject) as well as wider work on co-management of air quality and other issues undertaken by AQMRC@UWE.

 

 

Tim and Jo produce MOT paper for UTSG conference

Tim, Jo and the rest of the EPSRC funded MOT project team (Prof. Jillian Anable at Aberdeen University, Prof. Eddie Wilson at Bristol University and Dr Sally Cairns at TRL/UCL)  have had a paper accepted for presentation at the Universities’ Transport Study Group conference in Newcastle on 6-8^th January 2014.  The paper presents a broad overview of the potential of the DfT/VOSA dataset to create yet another new geography of pollution – one that is based around the users of both cars and energy, rather than the point of emission.

 

Further information on the MOT project can be found here:  http://www.abdn.ac.uk/ctr/research/currentbr-research-projects/mot/

 

A copy of the conference paper is available here: http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/22075/1/Chatterton%2C%20Barnes%2C%20Wilson%2C%20Anable%2C%20Cairns%20UTSG%202014-Variations%20in%20car%20type%2C%20size%2C%20usage%20and%20emissions.pdf

 

Chatterton, T., Barnes, J., Wilson, R., Anable, J. and Cairns, S.(2013) Variations in car type, size, usage and emissions across Great Britain and relationships with socio-demographic characteristics. In: Universities’ Transport Studies Group, Annual Conference January 2014, Newcastle, 6-8th January 2014

Tim invited to give lecture at Oxford Institute of Sustainable Development

Tim has been invited to give a seminar on “Re-thinking ‘household’ energy use - experiences at the frontiers of policy” at the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development as part of their 2013 seminar series.

 

The lecture will reflect on Tim’s experiences on working on energy issues with various government departments over the  last 3 years, and where a 12-month Fellowship based in DECC has taken his research agenda.  In the current context of headlines about rising energy bills and “Cutting green c%#p” Tim will be reflecting on the challenges of communicating not just climate science, but social science too.

 

http://oisd.brookes.ac.uk/seminars/2013.html

 

Abstracts accepted for Air Quality 2014

AQMRC has had two abstracts accepted for the 9th International Conference on Air Quality – Science and Application in Germany in March next year. http://www.airqualityconference.org/

 

The abstracts are for:

 

A Study of Ozone Concentrations and Trends Across Europe: 1996-2010

This study reviews ozone concentrations from rural monitoring stations across Europe between 1996 and 2010 across a range of statistics with regard to the various objectives, target values and thresholds established by the 2008 Ambient Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC. The findings reveal that whilst there have been complex and varied changes in patterns of ozone concentrations during the last 15 years, there are still extensive exceedences of the various regulatory standards and that while peak concentrations may have been decreasing, background concentrations are on the rise.

 

Extended abstract available here: http://www2.uwe.ac.uk/faculties/FET/Research/AQMRC/Abstracts/Ozone_Trends_Abstract.pdf

 

A Study of Ozone Exposure Across Europe: 2004-2010

This study presents an assessment of exposure to ozone exceedences across Europe using a new methodology based around the Eurostat degree of urbanisation (DEGURBA) classification, which provides the ability to categorise exposure into ‘Urban’ (‘densely populated’), Suburban (‘intermediate density’) and Rural (‘thinly populated’) areas. The study considers exposure to a range of regulatory standards for ozone as set out in the 2008 Ambient Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC. It finds that although concentrations may be higher in rural areas, numbers of population exposed to exceedences of the standards are significantly higher in both urban and suburban areas.

 

Extended abstract available here: http://www2.uwe.ac.uk/faculties/FET/Research/AQMRC/Abstracts/Ozone_Exposure_Abstract.pdf

 

The work is co-authored with partners at The Danish Centre for Energy and Environment at Aarhus University, Roskilde, Air Quality Consultants Ltd.  and Milieu in Brussels and relates to work undertaken for DG Environment as part of support services for the review of the Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution.

 

Full author list:

T. Chatterton (1), E. Hayes (1), J. Barnes (1), J. Longhurst (1), D. Laxen (1) J. Irwin (1), H. Bach (2), J. Brandt (2), J.H. Christensen (2), T. Ellermann (2), C. Geels (2), O. Hertel (2), A. Massling (2), H.Ø. Nielsen (2), O.K. Nielsen (2), C. Nordstrøm (2), J.K. Nøjgaard (2), H. Skov (2), F. Pelsy(3) and T. Zamparutti (3)

(1) Air Quality Management Resource Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK; (2) DCE - Danish Centre for Environment and Energy, Aarhus University, Denmark; (3) Milieu, 15 rue Blanche, Brussels 1050, Belgium

Jo presented at IAQM meeting

Jo gave a very well-received presentation at the IAQM AGM in London yesterday, entitled "Wither LAQM?" - a pun (if one was necessary) on the status of LAQM following the recent LAQM consultation. The Chair gave a verbal overview of IAQM's concerns prior to Jo's talk, and a Defra representative presented Defra's response. The Chatham House rule prevents a more detailed disclosure of persons or events, but needless to say, the feedback from Defra on the consultation responses so far was very interesting...

Jo presenting at IAQM meeting tomorrow

Jo has been invited to speak at the IAQM AGM, entitled: 'Where now for LAQM'. The members' only meeting is being held in London tomorrow afternoon. Jo will be presenting, in addition to IAQM, in response to Defra's feedback on the LAQM Consultation. Further details about the meeting are available on the IAQM website http://iaqm.co.uk/event/iaqm-agm-where-now-for-laqm/. 

New paper for Tim

Tim has just had a new paper published setting out a lot of the work that he undertook in his ESRC funded Fellowship based in the Department of Energy and Climate Change and subsequent follow-on funding.

 

The paper, which is Open Access and written with Dr Charlie Wilson from the Tyndall Centre at UEA, describes and critiques the current tendency towards ‘universalist’ conceptions of behaviour within UK government policy, before setting out a tool aimed to help practitioners in all fields in developing a much broader understanding of the behavioural challenges that they seek to address.

 

Tim Chatterton & Charlie Wilson , Transportation Planning and Technology (2013): The ‘Four Dimensions of Behaviour’ framework: a tool for characterising behaviours to help design better interventions, Transportation Planning and Technology, DOI: 10.1080/03081060.2013.850257

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03081060.2013.850257

The paper was developed as an extension of the report that Tim wrote for DECC on ‘Thinking about Energy Behaviour: A multi-model approach’ https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/48256/3887-intro-thinking-energy-behaviours.pdf

 

and his EPA commentary with Charlie on ‘Multiple models to inform climate change policy: a pragmatic response to the `beyond the ABC' debate’ http://www.envplan.com/epa/editorials/a44404.pdf