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Energy in Mozambique – a new energy mix
By ucftjm3, on 25 August 2015
image credit Anathalie Musabyemariya
Access to modern energy, such as electricity, and the services it provides are taken for granted by many of us. Globally, however, there are an estimated 1.3 billion people without access to electricity, and 2.7 billion who rely on traditional biomass for cooking. The use of traditional biomass is associated with well documented impacts on health and wellbeing, which particularly affects women and children. Bringing into sharp relief the deep and persistent global energy inequities, Morgan Bazilian and Roger Pielke Jr. draw attention to the fact that the poorest three quarters of the global population use less than 10% of global energy. Addressing this energy poverty challenge will require concerted and sustained effort, and increasingly constitutes a key area of international governance. Read the rest of this entry »
Bringing rural to urban: community energy and closing ecological loops in the city
By ucfugor, on 23 July 2015
Being interested in researching the often complex motivations behind community energy projects and the ways in which they develop and come to be, as well as being a firm believer in the potential contribution of localised urban energy production for moving towards a low-carbon transition, I was excited to learn about project developed with the London strand of R-URBAN, R-Urban Wick by UCL’s Institute for Sustainable Resources and art and architecture practice public works.
R-URBAN is a grassroots venture, aiming to enhance urban resilience by initiating closed ecological cycles, embedded in a local context. This could for example be achieved by re-localising (and thus “ruralising”) patterns of production and consumption within the city. And, by searching for alternative uses for the by-products of production which may otherwise be disposed of unnecessarily, their status could be transformed from waste product into alternative product, simultaneously creating economic, social and environmental benefits. With landfills close to being full, Londoners and city-dwellers elsewhere will no longer be able to ignore the waste issues that city life produces, so it is a great time to be thinking about ways in which we can divert and utilise the by-products of our consumptive habits. Read the rest of this entry »
Investments in Resource Efficiency: Understanding benefits & overcoming barriers
By uctpjer, on 26 May 2015
by Jun Rentschler and Florian Flachenecker
Resource efficiency investments tend to yield both economic and environmental benefits, yet many low- and middle-income economies lag behind. The main causes of inefficiency are market failures and distortions, which create barriers preventing firms and governments from investing in efficiency. Comprehensive strategies are needed to address the complex and interlinked causes of inefficiency.
High and volatile resource prices, uncertain supply, rising demand and environmental impacts – various factors are putting increasing pressure on policy makers, researchers, firms and investors to explore pathways towards sustainable and efficient resource management. Resource efficiency is considered to be an answer to these challenges, yielding substantial benefits – both environmentally and economically. Read the rest of this entry »
UKERC – So what will and should a true-blue energy and climate change policy look like?
By Katherine E Welch, on 11 May 2015
Along with many of the political pundits I thought I would be writing this blog today full of uncertainty as to which combination of the energy and climate policies in the party manifestos would be going forward. In the event we can turn from these speculations and focus on how the Conservatives are likely to tackle the twin issues of energy and climate change.
Before the election David Cameron, along with the other then leaders of the major parties, signed a commitment to the greenhouse gas reduction targets in the Climate Change Act. It will not be easy to keep the Conservative parliamentary party behind that commitment, as the experience of the coalition showed, and a reasonably early sign of how troubled these waters will prove will be the Government’s response to the Climate Change Committee’s proposed Fifth Carbon Budget, due at the end of 2015. Read the rest of this entry »
Future Energy – Thoughts on conditions for environmentally sound UK shale gas development
By ucftpe0, on 28 January 2015
Two recently published papers (McGlade & Ekins (2015) and McGlade et al. (2014)) examine possible futures for fossil fuels, with a particular focus on the ‘bridging’ role that natural gas may be able to play during a transition to a global low-carbon energy system. Drawing on the findings of these papers, we have commented that the UK may be able to develop some of its potential shale gas resources within the context of a global effort to keep average global warming below 2 oC with a reasonable likelihood. This note aims to discuss the conditions that we consider are necessary for this to be the case. Read the rest of this entry »
Negotiating Climate Change – Guest Seminar by Jeffrey Sachs
By Andrew ZP Smith, on 23 January 2015
Professor Jeffrey Sachs is Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, in New York, where he holds two professorships; he is also Special Advisor to the current UN Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals (a role he held for the previous Secretary General too). A busy man, so when he took the time to get in touch about the recent paper in Nature, by Dr Christophe McGlade and Professor Paul Ekins OBE, on which of the world’s fossil-fuel resources must remain unburned, and where they are, we hoped a brief email discussion might lead to collaboration sometime in the future. So it was a delight when Professor Sachs offered to drop by and present a talk just a few days later, and thanks to Kiran Dhillon and Paul Ekins, it happened. Here’s my summary of his talk:
Image: Prof. Jeff Sachs (c), with UCL Energy Institute Director Prof. Bob Lowe (l) and Prof. Paul Ekins OBE (r), Director of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources
Climate Change – The Lima Hangover
By ucftmgr, on 13 January 2015
sustainable world (c) istockphoto
The 20th Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate change opened in Lima on 1st December and finally closed at 1.30am on the morning of Sunday 15th. As ever the case with complex global negotiations, the late finalisation reflected hard-fought struggles to reach agreement – in this case, establishing the final roadmap for the Paris COP21 in December 2015 on which hinge hopes for an effective new global treaty on tackling climate change.
Most commentators greeted the Lima outcome positively, somewhere on the spectrum between relief and enthusiasm. Some of those usually inclined to scepticism about international negotiations were marked in their praise. It may have helped that the organisation was smooth (no mean feat with more than 10,000 people attending), the venue unusually convenient for negotiators and observers alike, and the weather fine. A good atmosphere helps. Lima was marked above all by a sense of optimism, energy and – dare I say it – inclusiveness, which has been largely lacking ever since the collapse of the Copenhagen summit in 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
Decision-Making in the Face of Uncertainty: Jim Watson Discusses The Future of UK Carbon Reductions at UCL
By ucqbmcl, on 17 December 2014
This December, Professor Jim Watson spoke at UCL on the topic of decision-making in the face of uncertainty. As the lead author of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) synthesis report “UK Energy Strategies Under Uncertainty” Professor Watson discussed key technical, economic, political, and social uncertainties in the UK’s low carbon transition. Read the rest of this entry »
All for one and one for all – sustainability, resources and stewardship of planet Earth
By Katherine E Welch, on 17 November 2014
(c) IstockPhoto
“The solutions are in our hands if only we could recognise them”, one of the key remarks from the closing panel discussion at this year’s BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities/UCL Grand Challenges Symposium hosted by the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources on Nov 6-7.
This is, I think, a sentiment shared by most, and certainly by those attending this year’s conference, which ran with the theme ‘Stewardship for Planet Earth’. Over the two days of the event we heard contributions from academics, policy makers and practitioners, both presenting and in the audience, and held rousing discussions about our individual and shared responsibilities for how, and to what extent, we exploit our natural resources. Read the rest of this entry »
Towards energy security, the Russia-Ukraine-EU Debate
By Catalina Spataru, on 18 September 2014
Ukraine’s political situation has been dominating headlines in recent months, and its position as a main conduit for energy supplies between Europe and Russia is becoming a critical issue. It was such issues that were the topic of discussion at a recent workshop organised by Dr Catalina Spataru from UCL Energy, in collaboration with partners from UCL ISR, Europe, Ukraine and Russia. Read the rest of this entry »