Infrastructure Requirements for Zero Carbon
Why we can’t build our way out of the climate emergency
This report explores how incompatible our society’s current and planned infrastructure is with the rapid decarbonisation of the UK economy needed to deliver on the climate emergency. It focuses on three key sectors: freight transport, aviation and steel, and considers what changes are required to bring these into line with zero carbon goals, using the ‘blockers and enablers’ toolkit introduced in Green House’s August 2020 report, Trade and Investment Requirements for Zero Carbon.
Jonathan Essex, one of the report’s authors, said:
This report explores how incompatible our society’s current and planned infrastructure is with the rapid decarbonisation of the UK economy needed to deliver on the climate emergency. It focuses on three key sectors: freight transport, aviation and steel, and considers what changes are required to bring these into line with zero carbon goals, using the ‘blockers and enablers’ toolkit introduced in Green House’s August 2020 report, Trade and Investment Requirements for Zero Carbon.
Jonathan Essex, one of the report’s authors, said:
Much of our existing industrial infrastructure, such as fossil fuel power stations and steel blast furnaces, is incompatible with zero carbon. Similarly, planned new transport infrastructure is still taking our economy in the wrong direction. The climate emergency means we must make different infrastructure choices. We need to manage down demand for energy and materials, and install renewable energy infrastructure faster. And we must reverse out investment in expanding road networks, ports and airports and make better use of what we already have. A climate-proof infrastructure investment strategy will be one that drives a change to smaller, circular economies that fit within environmental limits.
The government’s new National Infrastructure Strategy must be audited by the UK Committee on Climate Change and climate scientists against clear targets on its sufficiency to deliver on our rising climate commitments.
The government’s new National Infrastructure Strategy must be audited by the UK Committee on Climate Change and climate scientists against clear targets on its sufficiency to deliver on our rising climate commitments.
This work forms part of a wider project led by the Green European Foundation exploring what a ‘climate emergency economy’ would look like through a rethinking of trade, industry and infrastructure investment. The project involves Greenhouse Think Tank in the UK alongside Groenlinks in the Netherlands and Green Foundation Ireland.
Project Overview Video
Published by the Green European Foundation with the support of Green House think tank. GEF Project coordinator: Adrian Toth, Green European Foundation. This publication has been realised with the financial support of the European Parliament. The Polden Puckham charitable trust have contributed to report design costs. The European Parliament is not responsible for the content of this project.
