Pathways to Sustainable Energy – Accelerating Energy Transition in the UNECE Region

Energy underpins economic development and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and has a critical role to play in climate change mitigation. The recognition of the role that energy plays in modern society is highly significant, however, there remains an important disconnection between agreed energy and climate targets and the approaches in place today to achieve them. Only international cooperation and innovation can deliver the accelerated and more ambitious strategies. Policies will be needed to all the persistent gaps to achieve the 2030 Agenda. If the gaps are not addressed urgently, progressively more drastic and expensive measures will be required to avoid extreme and potentially unrecoverable social impacts as countries try to cope with climate change. This report uniquely focuses on sustainable energy in the UNECE region up to 2050 as regional economic cooperation is an important factor in achieving sustainable energy. Arriving at a state of attaining sustainable energy is a complex social, political, economic and technological challenge. The UNECE countries have not agreed on how collectively they will achieve energy for sustainable development. Given the role of the UNECE to promote economic cooperation it is important to explore the implications of different sustainable energy pathways and for countries to work together on developing and deploying policies and measures

Learning Within

This chapter “lifts the lid” to reveal the workings inside the Expert Group as it developed indicators for the UNECE Strategy for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD); as far as possible, this chapter seeks to tell the story of the Expert Group in their own words. Its purpose is to share some of the learning that this process engendered with those who may develop mandates for, or participate in, similar processes in future, in particular, the proposed UNECE Expert Group on ESD Competences. Beyond this primary audience, the analysis of the experts’ remarks may have relevance for students of international policy while the set of suggestions may prove useful to a wider audience of participants and managers of similar processes. Following these introductory remarks, the chapter is divided into four sections. Section one provides the background to the process, with particular reference to the mandate, the selection of experts and working arrangements. The second section focuses on the development of the outputs from the first draft of the indicators through the pilot testing process to the development of additional tools to facilitate the understanding and use of indicators. Section three looks at the Expert Group as a “learning arena” and shows how the positive group dynamics contributed to the success of the work and led to the development of ideas and actions beyond the indicator framework itself. These three sections lead logically to section four that suggests guidelines for similar processes. The chapter refers to a number of key documents relating to the process but more significantly, it draws upon correspondence with 10 Expert Group (EG) members, (all group members were invited to respond). Follow-up interviews were conducted with three EG members

Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment in the UK after leaving the European Union

The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union and, until the terms of the ‘Brexit’ are negotiated, this has led to considerable uncertainty over the future practice of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in the UK. Here we show that multiple obligations exist outside the scope of the EU which mean that EIA and SEA will continue to be required in the long-term, but that their future compliance with the Directives remains unclear. We consider three scenarios for Brexit and present the implications of each; these are: signing up to the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement; membership of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), but not EEA, or negotiate a separate agreement. The implications of no longer being subjected to the obligations of the Directives under some scenarios are discussed and include opening the door for increasing diversity of application across the regions of the UK, and the probability of raised screening thresholds so as to reduce the burden of assessment on developers

Use of in Vitro HTS-Derived Concentration–Response Data as Biological Descriptors Improves the Accuracy of QSAR Models of in Vivo Toxicity

BackgroundQuantitative high-throughput screening (qHTS) assays are increasingly being used to inform chemical hazard identification. Hundreds of chemicals have been tested in dozens of cell lines across extensive concentration ranges by the National Toxicology Program in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health Chemical Genomics Center.ObjectivesOur goal was to test a hypothesis that dose–response data points of the qHTS assays can serve as biological descriptors of assayed chemicals and, when combined with conventional chemical descriptors, improve the accuracy of quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) models applied to prediction of in vivo toxicity end points.MethodsWe obtained cell viability qHTS concentration–response data for 1,408 substances assayed in 13 cell lines from PubChem; for a subset of these compounds, rodent acute toxicity half-maximal lethal dose (LD50) data were also available. We used the k nearest neighbor classification and random forest QSAR methods to model LD50 data using chemical descriptors either alone (conventional models) or combined with biological descriptors derived from the concentration–response qHTS data (hybrid models). Critical to our approach was the use of a novel noise-filtering algorithm to treat qHTS data.ResultsBoth the external classification accuracy and coverage (i.e., fraction of compounds in the external set that fall within the applicability domain) of the hybrid QSAR models were superior to conventional models.ConclusionsConcentration–response qHTS data may serve as informative biological descriptors of molecules that, when combined with conventional chemical descriptors, may considerably improve the accuracy and utility of computational approaches for predicting in vivo animal toxicity end points

A GIS model-based assessment of the environmental distribution of g-hexachlorocyclohexane in European soils and waters

The MAPPE GIS based multimedia model is used to produce a quantitative description of the behaviour of γ-hexachlorocyclohexane (γ-HCH) in Europe, with emphasis on continental surface waters. The model is found to reasonably reproduce γ-HCH distributions and variations along the years in atmosphere and soil; for continental surface waters, concentrations were reasonably well predicted for year 1995, when lindane was still used in agriculture, while for 2005, assuming severe restrictions in use, yields to substantial underestimation. Much better results were yielded when same mode of release as in 1995 was considered, supporting the conjecture that for γ-HCH, emission data rather that model structure and parameterization can be responsible for wrong estimation of concentrations. Future research should be directed to improve the quality of emission data. Joint interpretation of monitoring and modelling results, highlights that lindane emissions in Europe, despite the marked decreasing trend, persist beyond the provisions of existing legislation. An spatially-explicit multimedia modelling strategy was applied to describe the historical distribution of γ-HCH in European soils and surface waters

Delivering more inclusive public participation in coastal flood management: a case study in Suffolk, UK

Ongoing problems achieving local population acceptance of coastal flood strategies threaten their implementation. A lack of meaningful engagement by all elements of potentially affected populations is seen as instrumental in this problem. This research assumes that multiple discourses exist on involvement with flood management, but that most are not engaged in decision-making. The aim is therefore to identify, and develop an approach for engaging with, all discourses related to flood management decision-making. Q methodology and follow-up interviews were used to identify both discourses and issues with current engagement strategies related to involvement in flood management in a case study population, controlled to allow for potential bias subject to the validity of the information deficit model, based in the Alde and Ore Estuary, Suffolk, UK. The five discourses included people who are knowledgeable; politically aware; sceptical and pragmatic; sceptical and locally attuned; and engaged or disengaged; in their perspectives on flood management. A workshop was subsequently held to identify engagement strategies that could engage with all discourses. Involvement of participants representing the range of existing discourses is argued to be necessary to lead to effective recommendations for more inclusive engagement approaches

The impact of European legislative and technology measures to reduce air pollutants on air quality, human health and climate

European air quality legislation has reduced emissions of air pollutants across Europe since the 1970s, affecting air quality, human health and regional climate. We used a coupled composition-climate model to simulate the impacts of European air quality legislation and technology measures implemented between 1970 and 2010. We contrast simulations using two emission scenarios; one with actual emissions in 2010 and the other with emissions that would have occurred in 2010 in the absence of technological improvements and end-of-pipe treatment measures in the energy, industrial and road transport sectors. European emissions of sulphur dioxide, black carbon (BC) and organic carbon in 2010 are 53%, 59% and 32% lower respectively compared to emissions that would have occurred in 2010 in the absence of legislative and technology measures. These emission reductions decreased simulated European annual mean concentrations of fine particulate matter(PM2.5) by 35%, sulphate by 44%, BC by 56% and particulate organic matter by 23%. The reduction in PM2.5 concentrations is calculated to have prevented 80 000 (37 000–116 000, at 95% confidence intervals) premature deaths annually across the European Union, resulting in a perceived financial benefit to society of US$232 billion annually (1.4% of 2010 EU GDP). The reduction in aerosol concentrations due to legislative and technology measures caused a positive change in the aerosol radiative effect at the top of atmosphere, reduced atmospheric absorption and also increased the amount of solar radiation incident at the surface over Europe. We used an energy budget approximation to estimate that these changes in the radiative balance have increased European annual mean surface temperatures and precipitation by 0.45 ± 0.11 °C and by 13 ± 0.8 mm yr−1 respectively. Our results show that the implementation of European legislation and technological improvements to reduce the emission of air pollutants has improved air quality and human health over Europe, as well as having an unintended impact on the regional radiative balance and climate

Moving upstream in health promoting policies for older people with early frailty in England? A policy analysis.

Objectives Globally, populations are rapidly ageing and countries have developed health promotion and wellbeing strategies to address increasing demand for health care and old-age support. The older population is not homogeneous however, and includes a large group in transition between being active and healthy to being frail, i.e. with early frailty. This review explores the extent to which policy in England has addressed this group with a view to supporting independence and preventing further progression towards frailty. Methods A narrative review was conducted of 157 health and social care policy documents current in 2014-2017 at three levels of the health and social care system in England. Findings We report the policy problem analysis, the shifts over time in language from health promotion to illness prevention, the shift in target populations to mid-life and those most at risk of adverse outcomes through frailty, and changes to delivery mechanisms to incentivize attention to the frailest rather than those with early frailty. We found that older people in general were not identified as a specific population in many of these policies. While this may reflect a welcome lack of age discrimination, it could equally represent omission through ageism. Only at local level did we identify some limited attention to preventative actions with people with early frailty. Conclusion The lack of policy attention to older people with early frailty is a missed opportunity to address some of the demands on health and social care services. Addressing the individual and societal consequences of adverse experiences of those with the greatest frailty should not distract from a more distinct public health perspective which argues for a refocusing upstream to health promotion and illness prevention for those with early frailty