Zero Carbon Britain
Paul Allen of the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT)
20-min video of Paul's keynote presentation at the 'Changing Systems: Not Just Lightbulbs' workshop in May 2017:
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Related 5-min interview with Paul Allen on the role of universities.
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Talk summary:
What’s a normal Saturday morning?
The Centre for Alternative Technology’s Zero Carbon Britain (ZCB) research points out that a Saturday morning in 2017 is anything but ‘normal’. As an 'average person', we will be consuming over eight times the energy of our forebears back in 1850. Most of this additional energy is coming from non-renewable sources – chiefly oil, coal and gas.
Is this anything to be concerned about, or simply a welcome sign of major progress? Well, if we could continue to run our economy indefinitely on fossil fuels, there may not be a problem. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that we cannot do this, for two key reasons.
Firstly, to deliver the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, which aims to keep the global temperature rise this century below 2 degrees Celsius, the world needs to reach zero carbon shortly after mid-century. Zero carbon meaning no net emissions of carbon into the atmosphere. Secondly, from the point of view of fuel supplies, we are now approaching the peak of both conventional oil and coal production, even by conservative estimates. For both these reasons, fossil fuel prices are likely to rise considerably over the medium-long term.
Throughout the era of cheap fossil fuels, we have built infrastructure - including buildings, transport, food systems and electricity supply – that uses far more energy than is necessary to deliver the services we need. There are now two imperatives, argues the Zero Carbon Britain report:
Ø Power Down – We can reduce overall energy demand by 60% using existing technologies
Ø Power Up – A rapid expansion of renewables means we can power our economy on clean, affordable energy.
ZCB presents the case for the UK becoming 'net zero carbon' within a couple of decades – and it offers a detailed pathway to do so. It is not the only possible pathway– but it demonstrates that it can be done without any new, unproven technologies – and with decent standards of living for everyone. We just need to make the odd one or two critical up-grades to our systems…! Our challenge, in other words, is not primarily a technical one.
ZCB’s Who’s Getting Ready for Zero? research goes on to show that all around the world innovative pathways to zero carbon are emerging at the level of countries, regions and cities: ways of 'getting to zero' that can deliver a stable climate and 'keep the lights on' – or, for many of the world’s people, switch the lights on in the first place. The researchers conclude that scenario planning is a powerful tool for engaging people. We can investigate different possibilities for our organisation or community, and how they play out over the coming years. Many of us, and many of our organisations – including our universities - can become 'zero heroes', helping secure “a stable climate and a prosperous future for generations to come.”
The key elements of the transition to a Zero Carbon Britain using this model are presented with infographics in this “Report in Short”. The full report is here.
Here is an executive summary of Who’s Getting Ready for Zero?
The full report on the state of play of zero carbon modelling is here.
What’s a normal Saturday morning?
The Centre for Alternative Technology’s Zero Carbon Britain (ZCB) research points out that a Saturday morning in 2017 is anything but ‘normal’. As an 'average person', we will be consuming over eight times the energy of our forebears back in 1850. Most of this additional energy is coming from non-renewable sources – chiefly oil, coal and gas.
Is this anything to be concerned about, or simply a welcome sign of major progress? Well, if we could continue to run our economy indefinitely on fossil fuels, there may not be a problem. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that we cannot do this, for two key reasons.
Firstly, to deliver the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, which aims to keep the global temperature rise this century below 2 degrees Celsius, the world needs to reach zero carbon shortly after mid-century. Zero carbon meaning no net emissions of carbon into the atmosphere. Secondly, from the point of view of fuel supplies, we are now approaching the peak of both conventional oil and coal production, even by conservative estimates. For both these reasons, fossil fuel prices are likely to rise considerably over the medium-long term.
Throughout the era of cheap fossil fuels, we have built infrastructure - including buildings, transport, food systems and electricity supply – that uses far more energy than is necessary to deliver the services we need. There are now two imperatives, argues the Zero Carbon Britain report:
Ø Power Down – We can reduce overall energy demand by 60% using existing technologies
Ø Power Up – A rapid expansion of renewables means we can power our economy on clean, affordable energy.
ZCB presents the case for the UK becoming 'net zero carbon' within a couple of decades – and it offers a detailed pathway to do so. It is not the only possible pathway– but it demonstrates that it can be done without any new, unproven technologies – and with decent standards of living for everyone. We just need to make the odd one or two critical up-grades to our systems…! Our challenge, in other words, is not primarily a technical one.
ZCB’s Who’s Getting Ready for Zero? research goes on to show that all around the world innovative pathways to zero carbon are emerging at the level of countries, regions and cities: ways of 'getting to zero' that can deliver a stable climate and 'keep the lights on' – or, for many of the world’s people, switch the lights on in the first place. The researchers conclude that scenario planning is a powerful tool for engaging people. We can investigate different possibilities for our organisation or community, and how they play out over the coming years. Many of us, and many of our organisations – including our universities - can become 'zero heroes', helping secure “a stable climate and a prosperous future for generations to come.”
The key elements of the transition to a Zero Carbon Britain using this model are presented with infographics in this “Report in Short”. The full report is here.
Here is an executive summary of Who’s Getting Ready for Zero?
The full report on the state of play of zero carbon modelling is here.