Cities, airports and climate change
This month the All-Party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group and Carbon Connect is holding an event 'Pathway 2050: Developing a Sustainable Industrial Strategy' to look at how sustainability and competitiveness can be balanced effectively.
The former Department of Energy and Climate Change has been dissolved and there have been fears that this move will damage efforts to meet emissions reductions obligations. However, there is also hope that with the Brexit vote, there will be a new direction in finding more effective British solutions to climate change challenges. A new department has now been created to look at these issues, called the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
As featured in our earlier blog, the number of airports being built around the world is growing dramatically and we will be looking closely at this topic in our 2017 Future Cities Sustainability Forum. (See below our interview with the Mathematics Department at Exeter University on climate change research.)
In Britain, since 1990 aviation emissions have doubled whilst economy wide emissions have reduced by more than a third according to the group. With the government's green light to expand Heathrow Airport, there is renewed concern to make sure that UK aviation emissions must be consistent with the country's climate change commitments. The UK has a target overall to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 as set out in the Climate Change Act.
Meanwhile the Mathematics Department at Exeter University has built an enviable reputation for world-class interdisciplinary research to address the challenges of climate change and to inform possible pathways to a sustainable future through mitigation, adaptation and geoengineering. Researchers hosted the Transformational Climate Science conference in May 2014 n partnership with the Met Office and University of Leeds. The work of the department has also featured on the BBC and Channel 4.
Our interview below features the Professor of Climate Systems Dynamics within Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Exeter. Until September 2006 Professor Peter Cox was the Science Director - Climate change at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and prior to that he was at the Hadley Centre for Climate prediction and Research (1990 -2004)
Professor Peter Cox on climate concerns and sustainable building