Policy additionality for UK emissions trading projects: a report for the Department of Trade & Industry

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EU emissions trading in a crowded national climate policy space – some findings from the INTERACT project

Climate policy in EU Member States is becoming increasingly crowded. Multiple instruments have been introduced at both the Member State and EU levels and new instruments are regularly being proposed. As the number of instruments grows, so does the potential for interaction between them. This interaction can be complementary and mutually reinforcing, but there is also the risk that different policy instruments will interfere with one another and undermine the objectives and credibility of each. The central aim of the EU-funded research project “Interaction in EU Climate Policy” (INTERACT) has been to develop a systematic approach to analysing policy interaction and to use this approach to explore the potential interactions between the proposed EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and other instruments within both EU and Member State climate policy

Barriers to industrial energy efficiency: a literature review

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A review of regional and global estimates of unconventional gas resources

This Research Report assesses the currently available evidence on the size of unconventional gas resources at the regional and global level. Focusing in particular on shale gas, it provides a comprehensive summary and comparison of the estimates that have been produced to date. It also examines the methods by which these resource estimates have been produced the strengths and weaknesses of those methods, the range of uncertainty in the results and the factors that are relevant to their interpretation

Policy options to overcome barriers to industrial energy efficiency in developing countries

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The contribution of energy service contracting to a low carbon economy

Energy service contracting can provide a cost-effective route to overcoming barriers to energy efficiency. Energy service contracts allow the client to reduce operating costs, transfer risk and concentrate attention on core activities. However, the energy services model may only be appropriate for a subset of energy services and energy using organisations. A challenge for both business strategy and public policy is to identify those situations in which energy service contracting is most likely to be appropriate and the conditions under which it is most likely to succeed. Energy service contracting is a form of outsourcing. It will only be chosen where the expected reduction in the production cost of supplying energy services can more than offset the transaction cost of negotiating and managing the relationship with the energy service provider. Production costs will be determined by a combination of the physical characteristics of the energy system and the technical efficiency of the relevant organisational arrangements, including economies of scale and specialisation. Transaction costs, in turn, will be determined by the specificity of the assets required to provide the energy services, the difficulty in specifying and monitoring contractual terms and conditions, the competitiveness of the energy services market and the relevant legal, financial and regulatory rules. This project develops these ideas into a general framework that may be used to assess the feasibility of energy service contracting in different circumstances. The framework leads to a number of hypotheses that are suitable for empirical test. The project also proposes a definition of energy service contracting, classifies the different approaches, examines how these affect incentives and risks, provides an overview of the market in the US and Europe and examines the nature and structure of the UK market in more detail

Mapping rebound effects from sustainable behaviours: key concepts and literature review

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Estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for UK households

Energy efficiency improvements by households lead to rebound effects that offset the potential energy and emissions savings. Direct rebound effects result from increased demand for cheaper energy services, while indirect rebound effects result from increased demand for other goods and services that also require energy to provide. Research to date has focused upon the former, but both are important for climate change. This study estimates the combined direct and indirect rebound effects from seven measures that improve the energy efficiency of UK dwellings. The methodology is based upon estimates of the income elasticity and greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of 16 categories of household goods and services, and allows for the embodied emissions of the energy efficiency measures themselves. Rebound effects are measured in GHG terms and relate to the adoption of these measures by an average UK household. The study finds that the rebound effects from these measures are typically in the range 5-15% and arise mostly from indirect effects. This is largely because expenditure on gas and electricity is more GHG-intensive than expenditure on other goods and services. However, the anticipated shift towards a low carbon electricity system in the UK may lead to much larger rebound effects

Explaining sociotechnical transitions: a critical realist perspective

This paper identifies and evaluates the explicit and implicit philosophical assumptions underlying the so-called multilevel perspective on sociotechnical transitions (MLP). These include assumptions about the nature of reality (ontology), the status of claims about that reality (epistemology) and the appropriate choice of research methods The paper assesses the consistency of these assumptions with the philosophical tradition of critical realism and uses this tradition to highlight a number of potential weaknesses of the MLP. These include: the problematic conception of social structure and the misleading priority given to intangible rules; the tendency to use theory as a heuristic device rather than causal explanation; the ambition to develop an extremely versatile framework rather than testing competing explanations; the relative neglect of the necessity or contingency of particular causal mechanisms; and the reliance upon single, historical case studies with insufficient use of comparative methods. However, the paper also concludes that the flexibility of the MLP allows room for reconciliation, and provides some suggestions on how that could be achieved – including proposing an alternative, critical realist interpretation of sociotechnical systems

Introduction: new directions in energy demand research

Meeting the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement and limiting global temperature increases to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels demands rapid reductions in global carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing energy demand has a central role in achieving this goal, but existing policy initiatives have been largely incremental in terms of the technological and behavioural changes they encourage. Against this background, this book develops a sociotechnical approach to the challenge of reducing energy demand and illustrates this with a number of empirical case studies from the United Kingdom. In doing so, it explores the emergence, diffusion and impact of low-energy innovations. This chapter introduces the main themes of the book, including explorations of the processes and mechanisms through which different types of innovations become (or fail to become) established, the identification of the role of different groups, assessments of the resulting impacts on energy demand and other social goals, and the development of recommendations for both encouraging the diffusion of such innovations and maximising their long-term impact