Wind is a renewable energy source that is freely available on the world’s oceans. As shipping faces the challenge of reducing its dependence on fossil fuels and cutting its carbon emissions this paper seeks to explore the potential for harnessing wind power for shipping. Numerical models of...

For a high probability of avoiding dangerous interference with the climate system, all sectors must decarbonise over coming decades. Although shipping is an energy efficient transport mode, its emissions continue to grow. Compounding this, the sector's complexity, exclusion from emission...

Since the mid-1990s, the aim of keeping climate change within 2 °C has become firmly entrenched in policy discourses. In the past few years, the likelihood of achieving it has been increasingly called into question. The debate around what to do with a target that seems less and less achievable...

Abstract This paper introduces the method of decomposition analysis, and briefly discusses how it has been used in relation to patterns of energy consumption. It then uses decomposition analysis to discuss two radically different scenarios of UK energy use through to 2050, both of which result...

In March 2007, the EU reaffirmed its commitment to making its fair contribution to global mean surface temperatures not exceeding 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. In line with this, the UK Government has laid legal foundations for an emissions cut of 60% by 2050. Whilst 2050 reductions...

This paper describes the Tyndall decarbonisation scenarios, the first to take account of CO2 emissions from the whole of the UK's energy system, including emissions from international shipping and aviation. It builds on Part I, which outlined the backcasting methodology developed to generate the...

The Tyndall decarbonisation scenarios project has outlined alternative pathways whereby a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions from 1990 levels by 2050, a goal adopted by the UK Government, can be achieved. This paper, Part I of a two part paper, describes the methodology used to develop the scenarios...

In 2004, the UK's aviation industry emitted an estimated 9.8 MtC; a figure that, without direct intervention, is projected to rise to 16-21 MtC by 2030 according to the UK Government. As the UK's 60% carbon-reduction target approaches, so aviation is likely to become a dominant...