Image Attribution: Bloomberg New Energy Finance Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) is the leading market intelligence and advisory service for the energy industry. Held on Oct 19-20th in the glitz of a Hyde Park hotel, the summit agenda included keynote talks from Claire Perry (former Minister for Climate Change) and Kwasi Kwarteng (current Minister of State in BEIS), as well as a host of […]
A new ‘Exponential Carbon Roadmap 1.5‘ provides 36 solutions for cutting global greenhouse gas emissions by 50% over the next decade, and each successive decade thereafter. Timed to stimulate debate and action at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, the roadmap sets out a comprehensive, challenging but achievable programme of action for staying on track […]
Amory Lovins has been arguing the case for efficiency-led system transformation for over 40 years. His landmark paper back in 1976 challenged the orthodoxy of ever-rising energy demand, and is summarised in Wikipedia thus: “Amory Lovins coined the term ‘soft energy path’ to describe an alternative future where energy efficiency and appropriate renewable energy sources steadily replace […]
Charlie Wilson travelled to Potsdam outside sunny Berlin for a symposium on how to achieve the 1.5°C climate target. The symposium brought together IPCC lead authors, scenario modelling experts, and policy stakeholders to identify integral elements of 1.5°C decarbonisation pathways and how climate policy ‘entry points’ can drive transformative change. Together with Felix Creutzig at […]
SILCI researcher, Charlie Wilson, is off to Barcelona to present his answer to this question at the international conference of APPAM – the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. The short version of the answer is yes (because of the potential emission reduction outcomes) but with strategies for ‘de-risking’ the disruptive aspects to reduce […]
Well … almost. The recent G20 ministerial meeting in Japan included the following in their final announcement: “We recognize the importance of quantitative analysis on better understanding future energy demand and the role of innovation driven by digitalization … and the sharing economy”. The SILCI team couldn’t agree more! The G20 added: “We encourage efforts […]
Mission Innovation is the global initiative to double clean energy research and development, launched alongside the the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015. In May 2019, energy and climate change ministers from around the world gathered in Vancouver, Canada, to discuss progress so far. Collaborating with Research Institutes Sweden, SILCI researcher Charlie Wilson contributed […]
SILCI researcher, Charlie Wilson, was involved in a global scenario study published last year on how disruptive consumer innovations can help the world limit warming to 1.5°C. When presenting this work to policy, business, and academic stakeholders, the most common challenge was along the lines of … ‘this is all well and good, but where’s […]
Norway is an interesting test case for national energy transitions with an almost 100% zero-carbon electricity system (from hydro), the highest uptake of EVs anywhere in the world, and sizeable public resources for supporting energy innovation (largely accrued from fossil fuel rents!). Trondheim is the Norway’s answer to Silicon Valley, hosting a large and well […]
New research published in Nature Climate Change explains why 18 countries, mainly in the EU, have managed to peak and then decline their CO2 emissions from fossil fuels over the past decade. There are three main reasons why: a declining relevance for fossil fuels, a fall in energy demand, and strong national policy frameworks. To […]