Barrett, John;
Pye, Steve;
Betts-Davies, Sam;
Broad, Oliver;
Price, James;
Eyre, Nick;
Anable, Jillian;
... Scott, Kate; + view all
(2022)
Energy demand reduction options for meeting national zero-emission targets in the United Kingdom.
Nature Energy
10.1038/s41560-022-01057-y.
(In press).
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Abstract
In recent years, global studies have attempted to understand the contribution that energy demand reduction could make to climate mitigation efforts. Here we develop a bottom-up, whole-system framework that comprehensively estimates the potential for energy demand reduction at a country level. Replicable for other countries, our framework is applied to the case of the United Kingdom where we find that reductions in energy demand of 52% by 2050 compared with 2020 levels are possible without compromising on citizens’ quality of life. This translates to annual energy demands of 40 GJ per person, compared with the current Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 116 GJ and the global average of 55 GJ. Our findings show that energy demand reduction can reduce reliance on high-risk carbon dioxide removal technologies, has moderate investment requirements and allows space for ratcheting up climate ambition. We conclude that national climate policy should increasingly develop and integrate energy demand reduction measures.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Energy demand reduction options for meeting national zero-emission targets in the United Kingdom |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41560-022-01057-y |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01057-y |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Technology, Energy & Fuels, Materials Science, Multidisciplinary, Materials Science |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10151347 |
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