This is based on more vigorous and systematic pursuit of energy efficiency throughout the economy; on technologies such as large-scale solar heat, piped to urban buildings; a road and ai
Climate Change Policy
If global CO2 emissions continue to rise at the pace seen in the past decade, research indicates severe consequences, including accelerating sea level rise, more frequent droughts and floods, and greater stress on wildlife and plants as climate zones shift rapidly.
The UK government aims to cut UK GHG emissions by 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, compared to
Emissions targets dating back to 1990 were enshrined in law Yet a German Parliamentary Commission proposed an 80% reduction target as early as 1991 Two decades on, this ambitious pace of reduction still seems too little, too late Climate scientists appear to have underestimated the pace of climate change, raising concerns that we may be entering a period of greater instability.
Climate scientist James Hansen warned in 2007 that to avert dangerous climate change we must reduce atmospheric CO2 to about 350 ppm or lower He noted that the pre-industrial level was roughly 290 ppm, the current concentration is around 390 ppm, and it is rising by about 3 ppm per year.
Returning to a 350 ppm atmospheric CO2 level is an ambitious global target, but it may be more prudent than aiming for an 80% cut in CO2 emissions from developed countries alone The UK has shouldered a disproportionate share of past emissions and was the first country to industrialize, so it would be especially fitting and symbolic for Britain to take a lead in showing the world how to solve the climate problem cost-effectively and in a way that others can follow.
The UK’s climate change strategy includes the possibility of investing in technologies abroad; e.g., in developing countries, to meet its national targets To quote the government:
International emissions credits enable developed countries, including the UK, to fund emissions reductions in developing countries and count those reductions toward their own domestic targets This relies on the principle that greenhouse gases have the same impact regardless of where they are emitted, which means abatement in developing countries can be cheaper than in developed ones Consequently, these credits provide a cost-effective way to meet climate goals while leveraging lower-cost reductions abroad.
The core issue is that treating the energy efficiency potential of developing countries as though it belongs to the UK effectively assigns those nations’ emissions-reduction opportunities to Britain’s account for meeting its own GHG targets We believe developing countries should harness this potential on their own terms to advance their climate goals UK initiatives would be more persuasive if they aimed to meet the majority of a target domestically, with only minor aspects addressed within the UK and nearly all of the remaining effort achieved in other developed regions—such as the rest of Europe, North America, and Japan.
Australasia Reasonable exceptions to achieving it all in the UK might include; e.g., bio- sequestration, geo-engineering and the scope for trade in bio or synfuels
Future UK climate targets must account for the CO2 emissions embedded in international trade for manufactured goods to reflect the full greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of different economic activities Because these trade-related emissions are not currently included, the targets do not provide a complete picture of the UK’s climate impact across sectors or the economy.
We have known of the discrepancy for some time, so it would be possible for government to resolve it
To reverse rising CO2 levels, a very extensive combination of measures would need to be implemented The bulk of them would probably be chosen from the list in Table 1 14
Energy-related technologies GHG sequestration Geo- engineering
Reforestation Change earth’s albedo; e.g., use pale- coloured roofs, roads, car parks et al
Biochar production, perhaps linked; e.g., to Fischer-Tropsch synfuel plants
Transport Use of permanent grass and rotational grazing, not arable crops, to produce animal protein
Direct drilling and reduced ploughing of arable land
Solar Pre-combustion CCS on natural gas wells, geothermal wells and anaerobic digesters
Wind Hydro Post-combustion CCS, initially on wood- and coal-fired plants, later on other fuels
Artificially- accelerated weathering of silicate minerals
Tidal Geothermal CCS on steelworks, cement and lime kilns and other industrial processes, and/or direct reduction of iron ore with H 2
Biomass Wave Use more CO 2 in plastics and other chemical production, including foam insulation
Fossil fuels Replace coal and oil by natural gas, consistent with falling total demand
Use more certified timber in insulation, furniture, finishes, claddings, civil engineering and construction
Engineered biomass “storage silos” Screen out sunlight by injecting dust and/or aerosols into atmosphere
Sequestration in carbonate rocks Injection into active oil wells, allied to enhanced oil recovery
Phase out or forgo fuels with higher CO 2 emissions than coal
Geological sequestration in salt domes or ex-coal seams Injection into ex-natural gas or oil wells
Injection into aquifers Deep ocean disposal of liquid CO 2 Mirrors in space
Table 1 List of Climate Change Abatement Measures.
1 The list includes a wide range of options but does not claim to be comprehensive
Not all of these measures are intended to be deployed; some may not be particularly wise or effective, and certain Type 3 measures—and even some Type 2 measures—raise significant concerns See the accompanying text for further context.
3 The list excludes materials substitution measures; e.g., in the construction industry, which
Energy Measures and GHG Sequestration
Most type 1 and type 2 measures are lower-risk than type 3, but some type 2 options require further development, assessment, or pilot-scale plants before they can be deployed effectively or considered commercially proven Examples include post-combustion CCS, biochar, and using CO2 from pre-combustion CCS; for instance, separating CO2 from anaerobic digesters to produce synthetic fuels (synfuels) A few type 2 measures appear risky and might be foregone if other measures can deliver the desired outcome A notable point in Table 1 is the diversity of options to be considered, in addition to the energy measures this report largely focuses on.
Reforestation needs no fundamental development Farmland and gardens have potential roles in
CO2 sequestration occurs through practices that increase stored organic matter in soil or in the standing biomass There is ongoing debate about the relative CO2 sequestration potential of various land uses, including permanent and temporary grasslands, temperate broadleaf forests, and other uses such as intensively farmed grade-1 horticultural land This distinction is often described as shallow sequestration, as opposed to deep sequestration in sites like ex-oil and gas wells and aquifers.
We propose the term biosequestration for CO2 removal and long‑term storage in soil and standing biomass that contributes to climate change mitigation targets Globally, biosequestration offers substantial potential benefits when weighed against the scale of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions It often presents advantages over other CO2 sequestration options, including post‑combustion carbon capture and storage (CCS) Moreover, changes in farming and horticultural practices typically require less upfront capital investment than the costly energy‑sector investments currently underway.
Raising soil organic matter through farming practices could lift crop yields, sequester up to 3 gigatonnes of CO2 per year, and reduce atmospheric CO2 by about 50 ppm by 2100, with these benefits arising from relatively safe, proven technologies and already favored by many UK mixed farmers as good farming practice A Royal Society review estimates sequestration at roughly 3–4 tonnes CO2 per hectare per year in large-scale industrial farming, and if such rates were achievable across substantial portions of the world's arable land and temporary pasture, the global CO2 draw-down would be very large Even on the UK’s comparatively small farmland, this approach could account for ten percent or more of current gross greenhouse gas emissions, a meaningful shift given that UK farming and forestry today are a small net source of GHGs.
CO2 sequestration rates in small-scale temperate horticulture, gardening, and agroforestry have reached up to 50 tonnes CO2 per hectare per year, based on measurements since 1994 at a 0.8-hectare research site in Devon It remains uncertain how much of the UK land area could adopt these practices, because they can be more labour-intensive than conventional commercial agriculture Nevertheless, expanding such approaches could contribute significantly to biodiversity targets and food security.
Imagine a mechanism that pays growers and farmers £50 per tonne of emissions avoided and enforces compliance through random testing and hefty fines for infringements Such high sequestration rates could attract annual payments of £2,500 per hectare for small‑scale enterprises achieving the higher rate, or around £150–£200 per hectare for more typical farming operations The payment for CO2 sequestration services might approach or even exceed the profit from the food output.
Farmers in Australia and New Zealand have launched private initiatives that reward those who sequester more CO2, creating a practical incentive model for soil and biomass carbon storage Advocates emphasize that these schemes are not carbon offsetting, arguing that sequestration incentives and offset programs are fundamentally different in purpose and practice.
Energy Economics - The Coming Age of Scarcity?
Energy is the backbone of the economy, and every product requires an upfront energy input Fossil fuels have dramatically expanded what human labor can achieve, freeing people to pursue other activities and driving vast gains in productivity The average person can generate about 0.6 kilowatt-hours per day through physical effort, which, when valued against median U.S wages, translates into a substantial per-kilowatt-hour value for human labor By contrast, oil—even at roughly $110 per barrel—costs only about 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, underscoring the large gap between the energy humans can produce and the energy delivered by fossil fuels This disparity helps explain why energy prices and energy density are central to economic performance.
Fossil fuels have made production vastly cheaper—roughly 500 times cheaper than human labor—making the replacement of human effort by fossil-fuel energy the single most important driver of economic wealth in recent generations On human time scales, oil and other fossil energies power modern life so profoundly that their impact often feels like magic, enabling unprecedented industrial productivity, transportation, and everyday conveniences.
Nate Hagens, ex-Editor, The Oildrum
Energy is the backbone of industrial society; without it, production, transportation, and daily life would grind to a halt The comfortable living standards enjoyed by billions over the past 50 to 100 years owe much to the cheap, high-quality energy supplied by fossil fuels—especially oil and natural gas—more than to innate ingenuity or to long-standing economic, social, or banking systems that have existed for centuries.
To counter climate change, we need a viable, scalable energy system that is affordable in the same way fossil fuels have been A truly sustainable energy future hinges on keeping the costs of building, operating, and maintaining that system within a nation's means; otherwise the transition becomes self-defeating and undermines wealth creation When energy investments absorb wealth rather than generate it, they can produce economic consequences similar to the 1970s oil price shocks, which imposed a heavy tax burden on OECD economies.
Most future energy-supply technologies are highly capital-intensive, making them expensive relative to past fossil-fuel systems and helping to explain delays in replacing fossil fuels These financial limits align with fundamental physical constraints: a technology’s energy return on energy invested (EROEI) must exceed the energy input by a sufficient margin, while also accounting for differences in energy quality (see Appendix 1) Examples such as solar collectors, heat pumps, geothermal wells, retrofit wall insulation, and energy-efficient lighting illustrate how each technology must deliver net energy gains above its initial investment to be viable.
Over the last eight decades, the EROEI (energy return on energy invested) of oilfields, refineries, and delivery systems has fallen from well over 100 to about 18, signaling a steep decline in the net energy available from traditional oil infrastructure Many future energy supply technologies are expected to deliver even lower EROEI than the large, accessible oil fields that have underpinned industrial society, making this a persistent trend to watch in energy planning This downward trajectory in EROEI challenges long-term energy security and economic resilience as we pivot toward alternative resources and new energy technologies.
Figure 1 shows that as an energy technology’s EROEI declines, its net energy output falls precipitously, requiring a substantial increase in the resources and activity needed to maintain and operate a society’s energy-supply system When EROEI declines linearly from 100 to 90, 80, and so on, the net energy yield erodes very slowly over a long stretch The decline becomes noticeable once EROEI enters the 10–15 range, and it then plummets toward zero as EROEI approaches one, leaving no net energy output at that limit Even at EROEI = 10, the overheads are much higher than at higher EROEI levels.
This graph, commonly called the energy cliff, reflects the fall in energy return on energy invested (EROEI) as we move away from high-yield energy sources For much of the last century we have lived off fossil fuel supplies with high EROEI, as illustrated by the left-hand side of Figure 1 Looking forward, energy supplies are likely to have EROEI values closer to 10 than 100, especially when the energy storage needed for security of supply is included in the calculation [41].
Concerns have been raised over EROEIs as high as eight, while some technologies in use today may have EROEIs in the range of 1.5–3.0; such systems, by themselves, seem incapable of sustaining industrial society, and their inadequacy may be concealed or subsidised by gasfields, masking the true economic viability, with a risk of relying on low-EROEI technologies causing problems at a late stage after large capital investments have been sunk and most high-EROEI resources have already been used up.
Given the fossil fuel era's trajectory, we should start now by using the energy surplus from high-EROEI resources to build the infrastructure needed for lower-EROEI energy sources anticipated by 2050 or 2100 A delay could make the transition much more difficult, because we may require virtually all the net energy output from future energy systems—those with an EROEI around 10:1—to sustain the societies we have built while managing a relatively rapid shift from one energy mix to another This tricky situation is often called the energy trap.
Encouragingly, a range of energy efficiency improvements that have not yet become widespread in the UK show very high EROEI values Our preliminary estimates indicate that external solid-wall insulation at the optimal thickness could achieve an EROEI of over 100:1 This level of return is on a par with the output of the world’s early oilfields.
In the challenging context of shaping a UK climate change strategy, it is essential to analyse and publish the EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) for the options under consideration This analysis should supplement economic studies, because energy outcomes and monetary implications are inextricably linked By comparing EROEI across options, policymakers can identify strategies that maximise surplus energy, since surplus energy ultimately translates into monetary value and economic resilience.
The UK has already been through a series of transitions to cheaper, more concentrated and/ or more convenient energy sources Coal steadily replaced wood in quantity in the 18 th century Its consumption grew rapidly all through the 19 th century The UK experienced its
“peak coal” in 1913, followed by its peak oil in 1999 and peak gas in 2000
Figure 2 shows the rates of UK coal, oil and conventional natural gas extraction over time in common units If we continue burning them at today’s rates, growing amounts of these fuels would have to be imported, with adverse balance of payments implications We already import 70% of our coal and 50% of our natural gas Worldwide, oil is widely regarded as being the fossil fuel in scarcest supply, relative to rates of consumption
Large reserves of shale gas have been found in recent years, offering to some observers the possibility of an easier “natural gas bridge” to renewable sources, as long as total fossil fuel consumption falls fast enough, and/or sequestration rises fast enough, to meet GHG targets 46 Natural gas still emits GHGs though, albeit less than coal-fired combustion plants 47 48 So any contribution from gas would need to be accompanied by enough investment in energy efficiency and enough CO2 sequestration to give falling net GHG emissions Given the low cost of natural gas and most energy efficiency measures, though, and the apparently modest costs of many CO2 sequestration measures, this combination has some economic merits over current policy The exclusion of natural gas from UK policy is hard to follow, given that even in 2050 the “pathways” feature a role for oil 49
Rate of UK Fossil Fuel Production
GW coal oil natural gas
Figure 2 UK peak coal, oil and conventional natural gas production
Improved Energy Efficiency
Arthur Rosenfeld, a US energy pioneer, described energy efficiency as discovering a new series of giant oilfields inside our buildings, vehicles, factories, farms, and power stations From these efficiency resources, fuel can be drawn at prices well below today’s fossil fuels Much of this resource is cheaper than the current world price of fossil fuels and is fundamentally more permanent It may be the only global energy resource that can broadly compete with cheap fossil fuels without triggering climate change.
Will the resource ever run out? Perhaps only in the very distant future could it become depleted Yet over the last 35 years, advances in underlying technology across many fields have kept pace with, and often outpaced, energy-efficiency improvements Today, the potential for further gains in most sectors is higher than it was in 1980.
A major hurdle in quantifying the resource is that energy efficiency has never been studied as extensively as energy supply In developed countries, progress in energy efficiency peaked circa 1977–1985, boosted by two successive oil shocks The period 1973–1982 also marks the last stretch of persistently high global energy prices If we commit to more sustained, continuous research and efforts in energy efficiency, we could uncover many additional opportunities to improve performance and reduce energy use.
Recently, more giant oil and gas fields have been discovered, largely due to the intense offshore exploration sparked by rising prices around 2005 Over the long term, however, the pace of discovery for oil and natural gas—including the giant fields that supply nearly 50% of global production—peaked in the late 1960s If extensive energy efficiency is the natural successor to cheap fossil fuels, we should document its costs and performance with the same rigor as past exploration of the planet for petroleum deposits.
It would be particularly fruitful to investigate measures for the more efficient use of electricity
Electricity is a more costly energy form than heat or fuel, by a factor of three to four or more The energy-efficiency measures cited in this report would cost the UK no more than about 3 pence per kilowatt-hour of electricity saved, i.e., they'd amount to selling electricity to consumers for less than 3 p/kWh Most households already pay 8–13 pence per kilowatt-hour for electricity, and prices are forecast to rise further.
Using electricity more efficiently lowers the short-term avoided costs of running existing power plants The variable costs for fuel, operation and maintenance are 4 p/kWh for gas-fired plants, 2.5 p/kWh for coal or nuclear plants, and 2.5 p/kWh for offshore wind Electricity delivered to 230 V loads suffers 12.2% transmission and distribution losses On that basis, the short-term avoided cost from reducing consumption in such buildings is about 4.6 p/kWh of delivered electricity when a gas-fired source is displaced, and about 2.8 p/kWh when coal, nuclear, or offshore wind would be displaced.
Lower electricity consumption also reduces use-of-system costs These costs typically amount to 4-8 pence per delivered kWh, meaning that a typical consumer pays roughly 4-8 pence more for each kWh of delivered electricity than the utility spends to generate that power at the plant.
From an economic rationality perspective, there is no obvious reason to spend £20 billion a year on electricity supply up to 2020 while there is no policy to spend an equally serious sum on improving electricity efficiency It is surprising for a government and regulator to decree that £200 billion should be invested in energy supply in the next decade with no apparent major debate or assessment of alternatives A more balanced approach would weigh the benefits of demand-side efficiency against continued investment in supply, recognizing that efficiency gains can reduce overall costs and dependence on new capacity Without such scrutiny, policy risks locking in higher bills and missing better value from energy efficiency investments.
Under the current electricity and gas supply framework, private energy companies would need to borrow the funds required for the investment, and they would pass these costs on to consumers through higher electricity and/or gas bills, along with a commercial margin A senior industry figure warned that the scale of this expenditure may not be financeable.
Abating CO 2 Emissions at a Profit?
A practical way to approach the topic is to view energy efficiency technologies as CO2 abatement measures and to evaluate the cost of different options in £ per tonne CO2 equivalent (£/tCO2e) Many analyses present this idea as marginal abatement cost curves (MACCs), where the cost of each measure in £/tonne is shown on the y-axis and increasingly costly measures are plotted from left to right on the x-axis, illustrating the savings from individual measures and the cumulative savings in tonnes per year.
A MACC was published for the USA, to the year 2030, by the Environmental Protection Agency 91
In 2008, Siemens AG published a study for London to the year 2025 92 In 2009, McKinsey and Co published a worldwide analysis See Figure 6
A key finding from these analyses is that many energy-efficiency measures reduce CO2 emissions at negative cost Because these low- to medium-cost options save energy whose value exceeds their upfront expense, the CO2 reductions they achieve are effectively cost-negative As Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute says, this is not a free lunch; it’s a lunch you’re paid to eat Yet Appendix 6 shows that assessments of the social cost of CO2 emissions, and the taxes on some forms of energy, are strongly positive, often up to £300 per tonne.
Figure 6 Worldwide Supply Curve of CO 2 Abatement Measures - Costs and Cumulative Savings 93
Source: McKinsey and Co., Inc
There appears to be fairly wide agreement that the social cost of carbon is at least £40-50 per tonne The UK Climate Change Committee has suggested that achieving an 80% reduction by 2050 would require investment in CO2 abatement measures costing around £250 per tonne.
Before confirming such a figure, the UK should assess the potential for enhanced energy efficiency across the economy, including the more economical option in urban areas of heat networks instead of electric heat pumps and replacement electricity networks The report’s core message is that we have not yet exploited a broad range of measures that could abate emissions and lower energy demand.
CO2 emissions at negative or low costs; e.g., minus £200 to £50-150/tonne In a functioning GHG abatement market, measures at minus £150/tonne would be implemented well before anyone would pay £1,000, even £150/tonne
Figure 6 shows the required format, but as a worldwide scoping study it does not capture national differences in building construction methods; Figure 12 addresses this limitation for one broad dwelling type—post-1960s cavity-walled low-rise housing, and producing a UK-focused MACC (Marginal Abatement Cost Curve) that maps more of the country’s available resources would be a highly valuable addition, enabling a detailed, systematic, like-for-like assessment of energy efficiency measures across the economy alongside renewables and nuclear energy; such a study should also incorporate CO2 sequestration technologies to provide a comprehensive view of decarbonization options.
There is evidence that a large energy‑efficiency resource exists at negative abatement costs, a finding that suggests policy-makers are operating under a misconception For example, DECC has claimed that the Renewable Heat Incentive is meant to push consumers toward more expensive energy technologies; we argue instead that government action to remove avoidable institutional and market barriers to negawatts would unleash a wealth of profits for the many actors who could exploit this resource Doing so would slow the rate of increase in average energy-supply costs and help meet or exceed the Stern Review’s target of tackling climate change at a cost of no more than 1% of GDP The government should similarly adopt policies to encourage the private sector to offer CO2 sequestration services, including biosequestration.