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Research Projects

Delivering a low carbon Britain post-2010

Contact Email: info@ippr.org

Introduction

This project is part of The Low Carbon Programmme.

This project will make the case for, develop a vision of, and devise policies to deliver a low carbon economy and society in the post-2010 era. The work will culminate in mid-2007.

Further Information

The start of this project has been delayed due to staff changes in the team. However, this has not stopped us using the opportunity provided by the media interest in the Government’s recent energy review to push for greater action on energy efficiency - “Energy efficiency could solve ‘security of supply’ anxiety” and renewables.

We have been active media commentators over the course of the Government’s energy review, with coverage from Channel 4 News, Radio 4, Radio 5, Sky News, BBC News, The Observer, Independent, Times, Guardian and the specialist, local and regional press.

Publications

2050 Vision: How can the UK play its part in avoiding dangerous climate change?2050 Vision:
How can the UK play its part in avoiding dangerous climate change?

In 2000, the UK Government adopted a recommendation from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution that the UK should cut its carbon emissions by 60 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050. The Government now proposes to make this goal legally binding, by writing it into the draft Climate Change Bill. However, climate science has moved on substantially since 2000, and now suggests that countries like the UK should be aiming to make carbon dioxide emissions reductions of at least 80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050, if we are to avoid a 2°C global warming above pre-industrial levels – a threshold beyond which there is a sharp increase in the expected impacts of climate change.

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80% Challenge: Delivering a low-carbon UK80% Challenge:
Delivering a low-carbon UK

In this work, ippr, WWF and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) set out to investigate whether a target of 80% can be achieved in the UK by domestic efforts alone and what the costs of doing so would be. We employed two approaches – the MARKAL-MACRO model, used by the government for the 2007 Energy White Paper, and a model developed by Professor Dennis Anderson at Imperial College, employed for the Stern Review on the economics of climate change.

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