Stephen Peake

A pilot environmental index for the UK in the 1980s

A pilot environmental index with nine components is constructed for the UK. Public opinion poll results are used to assign weights to the components in the overall index. The index remains roughly constant for the period 1980 to 1988. Different sets of opinion poll results produce very similar index values, suggesting that this may be a feasible weighting method. Implications for policymaking are discussed.

The Marrakesh Accords: The value of carbon after COP7

Abstract Persuading delegates from over 175 countries to agree even a single paragraph of text regularly takes a whole morning. Agreeing around 240 pages of small print for the Kyoto Protocol has taken us just over four years, four and a half COPs, around 50 tachnical inter-governmental workshops, several tens of millions of air miles, and an area of forest the size of which would presumably be visible with the naked eye from the international space station. The seventh session of the Conference of Parties (COP7) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Marrakesh from the October 29 – November 10 2001. COP7 produced the “Marrakesh Accords” — the most detailed outline of the rules and procedures for the functioning of the global carbon market yet. Stephen Peake reports on the latest chapter in the Kyoto Saga.

Exploring the financial and investment implications of the Paris Agreement

A global energy transition is underway. Limiting warming to 2°C (or less), as envisaged in the Paris Agreement, will require a major diversion of scheduled investments in the fossil-fuel industry and other high-carbon capital infrastructure towards renewables, energy efficiency, and other low or negative carbon technologies. The article explores the scale of climate finance and investment needs embodied in the Paris Agreement. It reveals that there is little clarity in the numbers from the plethora of sources (official and otherwise) on climate finance and investment. The article compares the US

From participatory to contributory simulations: changing the game in the classroom

100 billion target in the Paris Agreement with a range of other financial metrics, such as investment, incremental investment, energy expenditure, energy subsidies, and welfare losses. While the relatively narrowly defined climate finance included in the US

Sustainable mobility in context: Three transport scenarios for the UK

100 billion figure is a fraction of the broader finance and investment needs of climate-change mitigation and adaptation, it is significant when compared to some estimates of the net incremental costs of decarbonization that take into account capital and operating cost savings. However, even if the annual US

A pilot Environmental Index for the United Kingdom: Results for the last decade

100 billion materializes, achieving the much larger implied shifts in investment will require the enactment of long-term internationally coordinated policies, far more stringent than have yet been introduced. Policy relevance Maintaining momentum towards fulfilling Article 2 of the UNFCCC – avoiding dangerous climate-change – means keeping a sense of perspective on how key financial and investment indicators of progress relate to the underlying macroeconomic reality of the task that lies ahead. There is a wide gap between the level of rhetorical commitment to mitigating and adapting to climate change evident at the Paris COP 21 Climate Summit, and countries’ actual on the ground commitments to emission reduction and investment in climate resilience, and the policies to bring them about. In particular, major shifts in financial flows towards low-carbon energy (renewables and energy efficiency) will be required if this gap is to be reduced.

Zero and Low Carbon Buildings: A Driver for Change in Working Practices and the Use of Computer Modelling and Visualization

There is much potential for supporting collaborative learning with interactive computer simulations in formal education and professional training. A number have been developed for single user and remote interaction. In contrast, our research is concerned with how such learning activities can be designed to fit into co-located large group settings, such as whole classrooms. This paper reports on the iterative design process and two in-the-wild evaluations of the 4Decades game, which was developed for a whole classroom of students to engage with a climate simulation. The system allows students to play and change the rules of the simulation, thereby enabling them to be actively engaged at different levels. The notion of Contributory Simulations is proposed as an instructional model that empowers groups to make informed, critical changes to the underlying scientific model. We discuss how large-group collaboration was supported through constraining an ecology of shared devices and public displays.

Delivering the Kyoto baby: UNFCCC COP9 report

Uncertainty surrounding the plausibility of predicted increases in traffic on the UKs roads highlights the need for an alternative to unconditional forecasting in transport planning. A scenario-based method, capable of dealing with this kind of uncertainty, is used to explore three alternative scenarios for the development of transport in the UK up to 2025. By analogy with long-term trends in energy efficiency, the analysis generates a workable interpretation of sustainable mobility which is translated into a quantitative target scenario for 2025.

The Jo'burg Summit: What did it really mean for renewables?

A pilot environmental index with nine components is constructed for the UK. Public opinion poll results are used to assign weights to the components in the overall index. The index remains roughly constant for the period 1980 to 1988. Different sets of opinion poll results produce very similar index values, suggesting that this may be a feasible weighting method. Implications for policymaking are discussed.

Renewable energy promotion in IEA countries

Buildings account for significant carbon dioxide emissions, both in construction and operation. Governments around the world are setting targets and legislating to reduce the carbon emissions related to the built environment. Challenges presented by increasingly rigorous standards for construction projects will mean a paradigm shift in how new buildings are designed and managed. This will lead to the need for computational modelling and visualization of buildings and their energy performance throughout the life-cycle of the building. This paper briefly outline how the UK government is planning to reduce carbon emissions for new buildings. It discusses the challenges faced by the architectural, construction and building management professions in adjusting to the proposed requirements for low or zero carbon buildings. It then outlines how software tools, including the use of visualization tools, could develop to support the designer, contractor and user.