1,298 publications from this institution
The environment, energy and climate are transboundary issues that require cooperative action to sustainably address. To meet our energy requirements, both the UK and Europe are heavily reliant on energy imports. As international concerns rise over the impacts of climate change and over increasing levels of geopolitical unrest, UK Government energy policy must balance the need for competitive energy prices, with the requirements to ensure security of supply and to achieve environmental sustainability. Much of the UK’s environmental policy and legislation derives from EU Directives. Some sectors of industry may argue that this imposes a burden on their business, whilst others may argue that it leads to stability of Government policies and that it enables long-term decision-making and investment. Environmental groups do contend that European Directives provide a much-needed safety net, to protect the environment over timescales longer than a UK electoral cycle. This safety net is particularly effective because the successful implementation of EU Directives must be evidenced, protecting the progress of these policies, particularly during periods of financial stress.As part of a larger grouping of countries, negotiations on the world stage (such as climate negotiations) can be conducted with more authority than would be possible as an individual country, since the countries represented by the EU collectively represent a larger proportion of the global population, and account for a larger proportion of consumption and emissions. Cross-European R&D projects have a wider geographical scope, cover a broader range of environments and draw upon a larger pool of skills and researchers than would be possible if projects were centred within a single country. Such projects are facilitated by a number of EU mechanisms– though it is possible that non-EU countries can gain access to EU research activities, e.g. through associate country status.The implications for energy, environment and climate, of a move to leave the European Union are not clear. It is clear, however, that environmental policy in the UK has historically been driven by European legislation, that the UK is deeply embedded within the European energy market, and that the UK (and European) economies are heavily reliant on energy imports. Whatever the UK decides, it is critical that improved energy security remains a Government priority, and that we adopt a move towards a fully integrated energy, environmental and climate policy.
Summary If Global warming is to be limited to a two degrees then the world must achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, however fossil fuel use in predicted to increase during this period. If the energy consumption and the net zero objectives are to be achieved by 2050, then at around 40 Gt CO2 per year needs to be captured and stored from annual fossil fuel use. In addition any atmospheric carbon exceeding the two degree limit must be removed by DAC/ BECCS technology and afforestation. This means that the total CCS requirement is ∼50 GT CO2 y-1 by 2050. It is clear that CCS is technically feasible now and in order to achieve both net zero and the requirements for more energy production, the CCS industry must be up and running at a large scale by 2050. Already electricity generation using CCGT-CCS is estimated to be of comparable cost to nuclear and renewables so its use will not adversely impact millennium goals. As only the Petroleum Industry has the skills to start up and maintain this huge CCS industry, it needs to grasp this opportunity and transform its image from climate pariah to global saviour.
In ecosystem modelling studies, data are often collected at a small scale but are used in models to predict ecosystem responses e.g. net primary production (NPP) at coarser scale, using data aggregation. The data aggregation causes errors that are difficult to predict, because of model complexity and our limited knowledge of the spatial heterogeneity underlying our aggregated input values. Input aggregation thus adds to the uncertainty associated with model predictions. One way of reducing uncertainty related to input aggregation error is to evaluate models at different resolutions for areas where high-resolution input data are available. The objective of this study was the quantification of the aggregation error on modelled NPP introduced by climate data aggregation. Therefore, climate data at 1 km x 1 km resolution (>30 000 grid cells) were used as baseline to simulate NPP with 11 different crop and biogeochemical models for the federal state North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). These results, for 29 year monocultures of wheat and maize cropping systems, respectively, were compared with simulation results using aggregated climate data for four resolutions (10, 25, 50, 100 km grid cell side length).The aggregation effect is represented by the maximum differences between the NPP, averaged for wheat and maize cropping systems over the growing season, simulated for the five different resolutions. Input data aggregation had little impact on NPP of 29 year averages (0.5 – 7.8 % for wheat and 0.3 – 10 % for maize), while the climate data aggregation effect was higher for single years; up to 9 % and 13 % for wheat and maize, respectively, gradually decreasing to low effects for averages over 10 year periods or longer. The scale effect differed among models and shows only a minor impact (2%) for an ensemble run.
