Stopping Climate Change

Written by one of the leading experts in the field, Paul Ekins, Stopping Climate Change provides a comprehensive overview of what is required to achieve Real Zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, and negative emissions thereafter, which is the only way to stop human-induced climate change.

Written by one of the leading experts in the field, Paul Ekins, Stopping Climate Change provides a comprehensive overview of what is required to achieve 'real zero' carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, and negative emissions thereafter, which is the only way to stop human- induced climate change.

This will require innovation in socio-technical systems, and in human behaviour, on an unprecedented scale. Stopping Climate Change describes the changes required to meet this goal: in technologies, social institutions and individual activities. Paul Ekins examines in detail issues around the supply and demand of energy and materials, and the efficiency of their use. It also analyses greenhouse gas removal technologies, offsetting and geoengineering, and plots the reduction of the non- CO2 greenhouse gas-emitting activities. Having set out the changes required, Ekins considers the economic implications, in terms of both the innovation and investments that are necessary to bring them about, and the effects that these are likely to have on national economies. The evidence presented points clearly to the economic impacts of decarbonisation being positive for the majority of countries, and for the world as a whole, even before considering the benefits of avoided climate change. When the health benefits of stopping the burning of fossil fuels are factored in, the global net benefits of decarbonisation are unequivocal.

Drawing on examples from the UK and Europe, but with wider relevance at a global scale, Stopping Climate Change clearly shows how determined policy action at different levels could stop climate change. It will be of great interest to students, scholars and policymakers researching and working in the field of climate change and energy policy.

Autorentext

Paul Ekins is Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy at the Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London (UCL). For 14 years he was a Co- Director of the UK Energy Research Centre. He was also the special adviser to the joint Houses of Parliament on the UK Climate Change Bill. At the EU level he was a member of the High- Level Panel of the European Commission's European Decarbonisation Pathways Initiative and was Vice Chair in 2012 13 of the then Environment Commissioner's Expert Economists' Group on Resource Efficiency. He is a member of the International Resource Panel of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and was a Co- Chair of UNEP's flagship publication, the sixth Global Environment Outlook, published in 2019. In 1994 he received UNEP's Global 500 Award 'for outstanding environmental achievement'. In 2015 he received an OBE from the UK Government 'for services to environmental policy'.

Klappentext

Written by one of the leading experts in the field, Paul Ekins, Stopping Climate Change provides a comprehensive overview of what is required to achieve Real Zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, and negative emissions thereafter, which is the only way to stop human-induced climate change.

Inhalt

Introduction

Chapter 1: Why real zero?

Chapter 2: The global context and pathways to net zero

Chapter 3 Energy efficiency, the 'first fuel'

Chapter 4: Kicking the addiction to fossil fuels

Chapter 5: The future is electric

Chapter 6: Filling the gaps with bioenergy and hydrogen

Chapter 7: Carbon capture, use, storage and removal, and geoengineering

Chapter 8: The great enablers: Digitalisation, the circular economy and critical minerals for the clean energy transition

Chapter 9: Decarbonisation of buildings, transport and industry

Chapter 10: Feeding the world, reducing waste

Chapter 11: Economics of climate mitigation

Chapter 12: Policy and delivery

Chapter 13: Conclusions

Index