Energy demand reduction options for meeting national zero-emission targets in the United Kingdom

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Barrett, John and Pye, Steve and Betts-Davies, Sam and Broad, Oliver and Price, James and Eyre, Nick and Anable, Jillian and Brand, Christian and Bennett, George and Carr-Whitworth, Rachel and Garvey, Alice and Giesekam, Jannik and Marsden, Greg and Norman, Jonathan and Oreszczyn, Tadj and Ruyssevelt, Paul and Scott, Kate (2022) Energy demand reduction options for meeting national zero-emission targets in the United Kingdom. Nature Energy, 7 (8). pp. 726-735. ISSN 2058-7546 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01057-y)

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Abstract

In recent years, global studies have attempted to understand the contribution that energy demand reduction could make to climate mitigation efforts. Here we develop a bottom-up, whole-system framework that comprehensively estimates the potential for energy demand reduction at a country level. Replicable for other countries, our framework is applied to the case of the United Kingdom where we find that reductions in energy demand of 52% by 2050 compared with 2020 levels are possible without compromising on citizens’ quality of life. This translates to annual energy demands of 40 GJ per person, compared with the current Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 116 GJ and the global average of 55 GJ. Our findings show that energy demand reduction can reduce reliance on high-risk carbon dioxide removal technologies, has moderate investment requirements and allows space for ratcheting up climate ambition. We conclude that national climate policy should increasingly develop and integrate energy demand reduction measures.

ORCID iDs

Barrett, John, Pye, Steve, Betts-Davies, Sam, Broad, Oliver, Price, James, Eyre, Nick, Anable, Jillian, Brand, Christian, Bennett, George, Carr-Whitworth, Rachel, Garvey, Alice, Giesekam, Jannik ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2915-1323, Marsden, Greg, Norman, Jonathan, Oreszczyn, Tadj, Ruyssevelt, Paul and Scott, Kate;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)