Fuel poverty in the European Union : a concept in need of definition?

The European Commission has stated that it does not support a European definition of fuel poverty, and that a common definition would be inappropriate due to the diverse energy contexts found across the European Union. Using official EU policy documents from 2001 to 2014, this paper will demonstrate that contrary to the European Commission’s stance, many of the EU institutions and consultative committees are in favour of a common European definition of fuel poverty, and have been arguing for the establishment of a definition for at least seven years. This paper will argue that a definition is vital for raising the profile of fuel poverty and ensuring it is recognised as a policy issue by all Member States of the EU, particularly at a time of rising energy prices, stagnating wages and growing concerns about energy security and climate change

The Energy Crisis and the Homelessness Crisis : Emergent Agendas and Concerns

This paper looks at a rapidly developing situation linked to the ongoing Ukrainian war and associated pressures on global fossil fuel markets and what it might mean for homelessness and housing exclusion at a European level. Some emergent issues are explored through the lens of the UK, but there is an attempt to cover wider European developments as the situation develops. The information used here was current during the Summer of 2022. The following areas are examined: homelessness causation, prevention, and reduction. The paper concludes by considering what the strategic implications of the fuel poverty crisis might mean for individual Member States and in relation to the European Platform on Combatting Homelessness

If Not Now, Then When? : Pathways to Embed Climate Change Within Social Policy

Climate change is arguably the defining issue of our time, with global impacts. Yet to date, scholarship within social policy has remained relatively fragmented and disparate, leaving an urgent need to start comprehensively embedding environmental thinking across all domains of the discipline (Williams, 2021). Responding to this challenge, this paper draws together existing work at the nexus of social policy, the environment, and climate change. The paper then presents findings from workshops held with social policy scholars, policymakers, and practitioners, using these discussions to propose pathways to embed climate change within the discipline. The paper represents a significant contribution to knowledge within the field as it seeks to both broaden discussions about social policy and climate change; to identify theoretical and empirical relationships that exist between the two fields but have not been fully recognised in existing scholarship; and to bring new perspectives and voices into the discussion

A global fund for social protection : Lessons from the diverse experiences of global health, agriculture and climate funds

The recent social, ecological and economic crises have not only revealed the gaps in social protection systems across the world, but also drawn global attention to the ways in which international financial and development architectures have failed to support universal social protection systems and floors. Within this context, this Working Paper examines the idea of a global fund for social protection which has emerged as a potential solution to these structural failings. By drawing on the experiences of seven global funds across the health, climate, and agriculture sectors, the aim of this Working Paper is to identify key lessons that can guide the possible implementation of a prospective global fund for social protection. Through a careful analysis of the governance structures, norms and standards of these funds, the Working Paper makes recommendations to be taken into consideration if a global fund for social protection is to be developed and implemented

Conceptualising socially inclusive environmental policy : a just transition to Net Zero

The policy area addressing the climate crisis in the UK, ‘Net Zero’, will affect many aspects of people’s everyday life. Given that policy builds from where we are now, which for some (post austerity, and mid cost of living crisis) means in financial crisis, there is work to be done in enabling a socially inclusive Net Zero. In this article, we modify the Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix’s four forms of participation for social inclusion, drawing on the existing literature on the social risks of environmental policy, to articulate the risks of social exclusion in transition to Net Zero. This enables us to develop a ‘person-centred’ approach to understanding the risks of Net Zero, articulating the risks of exclusion, and who is likely to be affected by them. We conclude by outlining a framework for an inclusive transition, and commenting on the policy and research implications of our thinking

A submillimetre survey of the kinematics of the Perseus molecular cloud: I. data

We present submillimetre observations of the J = 3-2 rotational transition of 12CO, 13CO and C18O across over 600 sq arcmin of the Perseus molecular cloud, undertaken with HARP, a new array spectrograph on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. The data encompass four regions of the cloud, containing the largest clusters of dust continuum condensations: NGC 1333, IC348, L1448 and L1455. A new procedure to remove striping artefacts from the raw HARP data is introduced. We compare the maps to those of the dust continuum emission mapped with SCUBA (Hatchell et al. 2005) and the positions of starless and protostellar cores (Hatchell et al. 2007a). No straightforward correlation is found between the masses of each region derived from the HARP CO and SCUBA data, underlining the care that must be exercised when comparing masses of the same object derived from different tracers. From the 13CO/C18O line ratio the relative abundance of the two species ([13CO]/[C18O] ~ 7) and their opacities (typically tau is 0.02-0.22 and 0.15-1.52 for the C18O and 13CO gas respectively) are calculated. C18O is optically thin nearly everywhere, increasing in opacity towards star-forming cores but not beyond tau(C18O)~0.9. Assuming the 12CO gas is optically thick we compute its excitation temperature (around 8-30 K), which has little correlation with estimates of the dust temperature.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication by MNRA