AQMRC project shortlisted for Great Western Research (GWR) Impact Award

Congratulations to Simon Baldwin, Enda Hayes, John Merefield (Exeter University), Mark Everard (Environment Agency), Will Pope (AAR Environmental) and   Jim Longhurst. Their  GWR, Environment Agency and AAR Environmental co funded project “Integration of climate change and local air quality management at a regional and local level” was shortlisted from 106 entries for a GWR Impact award.   The research project will now feature as a GWR case study.  

For more information on Great Western Research visit http://www.greatwesternresearch.ac.uk/GWRthestorysofar2.php

UNFCCC CoP 17

Jim Longhurst will be attending the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties 17 meeting in Durban, South Africa.

Jim will be a member of the Academy of Science  of South Africa Delegation and will speak at the CoP side event workshop “Pathways Towards Low Carbon Cities”

AQMRC workshop at EPUK

Tim and Jo held a workshop at the EPUK Spring Workshop in Rugby last Tuesday 5th April. The theme of the workshop was "Optimising the 'win-wins' - integrating air quality and climate change plans. The workshop was well-attended and provoked a good deal of thought and discussion about the best ways of integrating air quality and climate change through communication with stakeholders, both obvious and not so obvious, to achieve common goals. If you would like more advice on achieving integrated air quality action plans and climate change strategies, please email us at aqmrc@uwe.ac.uk.

Tim to present at Climate Change conference in November

The Centre for Psycho-Social Studies, UWE in association with UWE Institute for Sustainability, Health and the Environment presents a one-day conference: Seeing Futures: Integrating Scientific Views on Changing Climates on November 13th 2010. Speakers include:

*Dr Stephan Harrison, Associate Professor of Quaternary Science, University of Exeter
Climate Science – Certainty, Uncertainty and Risk

*Dr Tim Chatterton, Senior Research Fellow in Air Quality at UWE, currently on Social Science Policy Fellowship with the Department of Energy and Climate Change
Climate Change – Science, Media, Policy and The Public

*Dr Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics, Australia National University and author of Growth Fetish, The Freedom Paradox and Requiem for a Species
By audio-visual link from Canberra - Climate Knowledge Under Siege – the Many Forms of Denial

*Sandra White Ecopsychologist, environmental writer, bereavement counsellor, founder member of Transition Hertford
Beyond Sacrifice – Reaching Towards the Ecological Self

The Conference Chair is Sara Parkin, Founder Director of Forum for the Future.

Further details and online registration are available here. Hurry - discount rate until 30th August!

Rose speaks to year 12 geographers at North Bristol Post-16 Centre

Rose was invited to speak to year 12 Geographers at North Bristol Post-16 Centre at Redland Green School on Tuesday. She talked to students about carbon management and climate change, both internationally, and emissions accounting and mitigation options locally in Bristol. The students discussed issues ranging from international climate politics, renewable energy feasibility, and spatial planning policies, to energy efficiency in the home and public transport in Bristol. The morning aimed to provide students with a climate change case study for forthcoming AS and A2 exams.

Rose has abstract accepted for the Second International Conference on Climate Change

Rose has had an abstract accepted for presentation at the Second International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts and Responses, to be held at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia from 8-10 July 2010. More information can be found on the conference website: http://www.climate-conference.com

Roses's abstract is entitled "Envisioning the Future: a Methodology for City-Scale Carbon Management".

Using the example of Bristol in south west England, the paper will discuss a methodology for how cities could respond to the challenge of climate change and capitalise on their unique mitigation opportunities. By engaging local stakeholders through an innovative Delphi-like process, a number of low-carbon scenarios for the future city-region are imagined. Using backcasting techniques, together with conventional forecasting, a robust pathway from the present to a future desirable low-emission city can be described. This will bring benefits to planning and policy making, by providing a low emission-pathway beyond the short-term, and creates buy-in from key stakeholders through the Delphi-process, who have helped to define the city’s future.

Read more about Rose's research on her webpage.

Rose presents at Regional Studies Association South West Branch Conference

Rose gave a presentation on carbon management in the Bristol Region at the South West Branch of the Regional Studies Association conference at UWE on 23rd January. Rose's presentation included a review of current climate policy and emissions in the Bristol region and an overview of her research, before discussing some of the methods and challenges in emissions estimates and forecasts. Rose's presentation can be downloaded here.

Latest Newsletter of the European Federation Clean Air and Environmental Protection Associations (EFCA)

The latest EFCA (www.efca.net) newsletter is now available on-line.  This edition contains a lot of material  relating to the co-management of air quality and climate change, including an extensive report on he recent EFCA symposium in Strasbourg which should be making a real contribution to bringing the issues of air pollution and co-benefits to the climate change debating tables this week in Poznan, and next year in Copenhagen.  For further details please download the newsletter here.

 

(AQMRC, is proud to be involved in the production of the newsletter and to support the work of EFCA).

Nurul at Better Air Quality Workshop 2008

Nurul presented 2 posters at the Better Air Quality Workshop 2008 in Bangkok on 12-14 November 2008. The titles of the posters are: a) Applying lessons from local air quality management consultation to climate change, and b) The potential impact from increased use of wood-fuelled biomass to loca air quality in London: lessons to exchange with mega-cities in Asian countries. The posters were well received. The main message from the Workshop is the integration of air quality and climate change particularly in relation to transport sector!

AQMRC Air Quality and Climate Change Seminars

This morning saw the first of a series of Monday morning seminars presented by the Air Quality Management Resource Centre's staff and PhD students. Professor Jim Longhurst entertained a packed auditorium with his take on 'Air quality in historical perspective', reflecting on lessons that may be learnt and the length of time it takes to learn them!

The next seminar on 15th December will be given by Dr Tim Chatterton, who will be speaking on 'South Africa's National Framework on air quality' and exploring UWE's role in an exemplar of integrated environmental governance.

Further details are available on this seminar schedule. If you are interested in attending this or any of the future seminars (or just fancy a free croissant and coffee!) please notify aqmrc@uwe.ac.uk in advance.

Nurul attends Better Air Quality Workshop 2008

Nurul will be presenting 2 posters at the Better Air Quality Workshop 2008, which will be held in Bangkok on 12-14 November 2008. The workshop theme is "Air Quality and Climate Change: scaling up win-win solutions for Asia," representing two important trends that are shaping the future direction of urban air quality management in Asia. Nurul will share the experience of local authorities on Local Air Quality Management consultation to Asian colleagues and the transferability of the research outcomes to other locally based environmental management issues. The posters are entitled "Applying lessons from local air quality management consultation to climate change" and "The potential impact from increased use of wood-fuelled biomass to local air quality in London: lessons to exchange with mega-cities in Asian countries.

EP-UK: 'Local Action on Air Quality and Climate Change'

Environmental Protection UK held their training event: Local Action on Air Quality and Climate Change at the Aston Business Centre in Birmingham last Wednesday. The sell-out meeting was attended by Jo Barnes, on behalf of the AQMRC, and included a range of interesting speakers from central and local government, consultancies, industry and lobbyists. Presentations are available from the EP-UK website http://www.environmental-protection.org.uk/events/details/?id=1234.

Rose attends UKCIP08 workshop

Rose attended a workshop on 2nd June in Taunton, on using the new UKCIP08 climate prediction scenarios. The workshop was run by the UK Climate Impacts Programme and hosted by the South West Climate Change Impacts Partnership. UKCIP08 will provide information and give probabilities of current and projected future climate change for the UK up to 2099, using the UK Met Office Hadley Centre scientists' latest understanding of how the climate system operates and how it might change in the future, to better quantify some of the uncertainties associated with climate modelling. It is hoped that the information provided by UKCIP08 will make users better informed to be able to assess the potential impacts of climate change and make robust adaptation decisions.