UK Climate Change Act Paper Now Accepted

May 26th, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

My paper on the Uk Climate Change Act has been provisionally accepted for publication by Environmental Research Letters, so it can now be cited as in press.

Here are the details:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2009 (in press). The British Climate Change Act: A Critical Evaluation and Proposed Alternative Approach, Environmental Research Letters.

Here in PDF is a link to the pre-publication revision following review. And here is the Abstract:

This paper evaluates the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Act of 2008 in terms of the implied rates of decarbonization of the UK economy for a short-term and long-term target established in law. The paper uses the Kaya Identity to structure the evaluation, employing both a bottom-up approach (based on projections of future UK population, economic growth, and technology) as well as a top-down approach (deriving implied rates of decarbonization consistent with the targets and various rates of projected economic growth). Both approaches indicate that the UK economy would have to achieve annual rates of decarbonization in excess of 4% or 5%. To place these numbers in context, the UK would have to achieve the 2006 carbon efficiency of France by about 2015, a level of effort comparable to the building of about 30 new nuclear power plants, displacing an equivalent amount of fossil energy. The paper argues that the magnitude of the task implied by the UK Climate Change Act strongly suggests that it is on course to fail, and discusses implications.

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