With the publication of the Net Zero Strategy in October 2021, the UK has a plan to achieve deep emission cuts for the first time. It has been welcomed by some and criticised by others, with two organisations recently filing for a Judicial Review over perceived shortcomings.
This inter-disciplinary conference will bring together academics, industrialists and policymakers with an interest in the research into, and actual implementation of net zero within a policy context. The conference will examine the views of a range of stakeholders in key policy areas to understand in detail the strengths and weaknesses of the Net Zero Strategy, and what the next steps should be.
The policy areas being examined at the conference are:
- Implications of high oil and gas prices for our decarbonisation strategy
- Power decarbonisation – should there be a nuclear renaissance?
- Biomass strategy and negative emission technologies
- Public: how to decarbonise homes and cars while protecting vulnerable people?
- Industry sector: how to decarbonise while maintaining competitiveness?
- Public sector: The roles of local government in enabling decarbonisation, both directly and as an enabler for other sectors
- Behavioural change opportunities
- Costs and benefits of decarbonisation
- Customer engagement and regulation
- Green innovation and investment, and opportunities for ‘levelling up’
- Energy infrastructure
- UK natural environment considerations, including land and seas
