Alice Larkin

• BSc Physics; PhD Physics
• Professor at The University of Manchester

This study aimed to compare hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, and waste-derived biofuels as shipping fuels using life cycle assessment, to establish what potential they have to contribute to the shipping industry’s 100% greenhouse gas emission reduction target. A novel approach was taken where the greenhouse gas emissions associated with one year of glo...

The global shipping sector requires deep and rapid carbon reductions within a decade to align with Paris Agreement goals. Wind propulsion offers a retrofit option where sails provide renewable power to reduce emissions from a ship's engine. Combining wind propulsion with voyage optimisation shows synergistic potential, but the underlying technical...

Shore power connects ships to land-side electricity grids, cutting fuel use in port to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution. It also enables the transition towards greater use of electric vessels. Despite these benefits, the global deployment of shore power is slow, particularly in countries such as the UK. This paper presents findings...

Reducing the shipping sector’s contribution to climate change requires urgent emission reductions this decade. Both weather routing and wind propulsion offer immediate solutions, where combining sails with efficient routing amplifies the performance of each technology. However, while large emission savings are theoretically available, the impact of...

Hydropower is a renewable source of electricity generation that is a common feature of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), especially in developing countries. However, far from benign, research shows that significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions emanate from shallow reservoirs when they are sited in the tropics. Ghana provides a case study...

International shipping is overwhelmingly reliant on fossil fuels, with annual carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to a country the size of Germany. Actions to reduce its emissions are therefore an important element of global efforts to combat climate change. This article re-assesses the international shipping sector’s initial greenhouse gas emissio...

Scope 3 emissions from the UK higher education sector are globally significant, and long-distance air travel and catering are particularly emissions-intensive aspects of workplace routine. They each present complex problems, as transition to low-carbon alternatives requires the reconfiguration of professional practices. This paper examines the sust...

The UK introduced carbon budgets in 2008, with an aim to reduce greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 compared with the 1990 levels. It has been argued that the 2015 Paris Agreement on limiting the global average temperature rise to ‘well below 2° C’ requires deeper and more rapid emission reductions than the current UK targets. Household energy consumpt...

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we use...

Limiting warming to well below 2°C requires rapid and complete decarbonisation of energy systems. We compare economy-wide modelling of 1.5°C and 2°C scenarios with sector-focused analyses of four critical sectors that are difficult to decarbonise: aviation, shipping, road freight transport, and industry. We develop and apply a novel framework to an...

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we use...

Wicked environmental challenges require far-reaching changes to social, economic and technical systems. Yet, dominant ways of assessing how to mitigate global environmental change are highly reductive in their treatment of uncertainty and multidimensionality in these systems. Their common focus on optimal solutions, derived from quantitative techno...

The concept of "committed emissions" allows us to understand what proportion of the Paris-constrained and rapidly diminishing global carbon dioxide (CO 2) budget is potentially taken up by existing infrastructure. Here, this concept is applied to international shipping, where long-lived assets increase the likelihood for high levels of committed em...

This themed section was initiated after the 2016 Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society‐Institute of British Geographers, which had the overall theme of Nexus Thinking, and which included assessment of geographical dimensions of the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus. In this short editorial introduction, we outline the context for this ass...

The water-energy-food nexus lens highlights the complex relationships and multiple sources of uncertainty that affect the achievement of global sustainable development. Such complexity and uncertainty requires future-oriented research that is effective in gathering experience across disciplines, sectors and scales. Scenario analysis is a proven met...

Wind-assisted ship propulsion is an effective short-to mid-term mitigation option for the maritime shipping industry's essential course for rapid decarbonisation. Wind propulsion devices such as the Flettner rotor develop an aerodynamic thrust that can replace main engine thrust, promising large reductions for the fuel consumption of ships. This st...

This paper addresses the evolution of maritime transport demand in response to global climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. The complexity of the global shipping system makes predicting volumes and patterns of long-term future international maritime trade a challenging task which is best explored by building scenarios rather than ‘preci...

The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus has become a popular, and potentially powerful, frame through which to analyse interactions and interdependencies between these three systems. Though the case for transdisciplinary research in this space has been made, the extent of stakeholder engagement in research remains limited with stakeholders most commonly...

This chapter explores the potential role of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) in climate‐change mitigation and the implications of wide‐scale deployment of the technology. The key driver of climate change, and its potential impacts, is the cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere; the higher the cumulative emission...

Grand societal challenges such as climate change, poverty and biodiversity loss call for rapid and radical changes to systems of production and consumption. Consequently, there is a growing interest in the dynamics of innovation, both social and technical, to accelerate innovation diffusion so as to increase the possibility of a step‐change or larg...

The Paris Agreement, which entered into force in 2016, sets the ambitious climate change mitigation goal of limiting the global temperature increase to below 2°C and ideally 1.5°C. This puts a severe constraint on the remaining global GHG emissions budget. While international shipping is also a contributor to anthropogenic GHG emissions, and CO2 in...

About half of the world's oil supply, a fifth of coal supply and a tenth of natural gas supply are traded by ship. Accordingly, any significant shift in the size and shape of the global energy system has important consequences for shipping, which underpins international trade and supports economic development. The Paris Agreement requires an accele...

A cumulative emissions approach is increasingly used to inform mitigation policy. However, there are different interpretations of what ‘2°C’ implies. Here it is argued that cost-optimization models, commonly used to inform policy, typically underplay the urgency of 2°C mitigation. The alignment within many scenarios of optimistic assumptions on neg...

Projected growth in the international shipping industry is set to outstrip CO2 reductions arising from incremental improvements to technology and operations currently being planned and implemented. Using original scenarios, this paper demonstrates for the first time that it is possible for a nation's shipping to make a fair contribution to meeting...

This paper explores the role and implications of bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) for addressing the climate change mitigation challenge. Framed within the context of the latest emissions budgets, and their associated uncertainty, we present a summary of the contribution of BECCS within the Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) scenar...

The shipping industry faces an uncertain future, as the climate change challenges faced by all sectors become increasingly urgent and apparent. If a quantitative interpretation of the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement is applied, shipping, along with all sectors combusting fossil fuel, faces substantial challenges in order to successfully decar...

The latest scientific framing of climate change emphasizes the importance of limiting cumulative emissions and the need to urgently cut CO2. International agreements on avoiding a 2 °C global temperature rise make clear the scale of CO2 reductions required across all sectors. Set against a context of urgent mitigation, the outlook for aviation's em...

As nations develop policies for low-carbon transitions, conflicts with existing policies and planning tools are leading to competing demands for land and other resources. This raises fundamental questions over how multiple demands can best be managed. Taking the UK as an empirical example, this paper critiques current policies and practices to expl...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe research exploring consumer responses to potential changes in food-related practices to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Design/methodology/approach – Six focus groups explored consumer responses to measures to intended to mitigate the emissions from, and adapt to the impacts of climate chang...

Russia is the fifth highest emitter of carbon dioxide, having been in the top five for at least six decades. However, thus far no in-depth study has estimated Russia's cumulative emissions in the context of the global 2°C constraint. This is despite the IPCC reiterating the importance of cumulative emissions. Translating the global 2°C temperature...

To achieve the widely accepted goal of keeping global temperature rise below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, greenhouse gas emissions must reduce drastically over the coming decades. Under this premise, the assumption that the shipping industry realises the same proportionate CO2 emission reductions as all other sectors on average has strong impli...

The Shipping in Changing Climates (SCC) project connects the latest climate change science with knowledge, understanding and models of the shipping sector in a whole systems approach. It seeks to explore the potential to cut CO2 through the use of technical and operational changes in shipping and to understand how the sector might transition to a m...

The shipping industry expects ongoing growth in CO2 emissions to 2050, despite an apparent recent decline. Opportunities for decarbonizing the sector in line with international commitments on climate change need to be re-evaluated. This article reflects on the 3rd International Maritime Organisation's Greenhouse Gas Study 2014, to explore how the s...

Progress toward decarbonizing shipping has been slow compared with other sectors. To explore the scope for an urgent step-change cut in CO2, this paper presents results from a participatory technology roadmapping exercise. Results: Combining existing incremental and novel technologies with slow-steaming can deliver reductions in CO2 of over 50% eve...

All sectors face decarbonization for a 2C temperature increase to be avoided. Nevertheless, meaningful policy measures that address rising CO2 from international aviation and shipping remain woefully inadequate. Treated with a similar approach within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), they are often debated as if fa...

Background: The consumption emissions of many developed countries including the UK are significantly larger than their territorial emissions – the focus of international mitigation commitments. Methods: The paper presents the development and application of a multiregional input–output based scenario tool to explore the impact of carbon reduction me...

GHG budgets highlight a need for urgency, yet analyses are often CO2-focused, with less attention paid to non-CO2. Results: In this paper, scenarios are used to explore non-CO2 drivers and barriers to their mitigation, drawing out implications for CO2 management. Results suggest that even optimistic technological and consumption-related development...

Low carbon shipping may be achieved by changes to three core and interconnected elements – through technology developments, changing operational practices and shifts in demand. Technology offers a wide range of options, from incremental efficiency improvements to game changing technologies, such as nuclear or wind propulsion, with the potential to...

The Copenhagen Accord (and Cancun Agreement) commits the international community to “hold the increase in global temperature below 2°C, and take action to meet this objective consistent with science and on the basis of equity.” This article explores the implications of these commitments for the shipping sector. It outlines how the science of climat...

Every year, new research illustrates how the pace of global emission growth gradually reduces the chance of avoiding ‘dangerous’ climate change. Previous analyses that have taken a territorial emissions framing approach demonstrate how little space there is available for Annex 1 nations’ emissions to continue at current levels because of the pace o...

As the years pass by, the uncomfortable but inescapable evidence that climate negotiations have failed to even curb the rate in growth of energy-related CO2 becomes ever stronger. Taking the latest estimates from the International Energy Agency, CO2 emissions grew at 6 and 3% in 2010 and 2011, respectively, despite many of the wealthier nations ind...

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 two wind power technologies, a Flettner rotor and a towing...

Countries are known to follow diverse pathways of life expectancy and carbon emissions, but little is known about factors driving these dynamics. In this letter we estimate the cross-sectional economic, demographic and geographic drivers of consumption-based carbon emissions. Using clustering techniques, countries are grouped according to their dri...

Purpose/approach Despite the high profile of climate change rhetoric and the carbon intensive nature of flying, policies for controlling CO2 from aviation remain at odds with global commitments on climate change. Taking a carbon budgeting approach to compare future aviation scenarios with the scale of necessary emission reductions demonstrates the...

Since the mid-1990s, the aim of keeping climate change within 2 degrees 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 is, however, only just beginning. As the UN comm...

The rise of food security up international political, societal and academic agendas has led to increasing interest in novel means of improving primary food production and reducing waste. There are however, also many ‘post-farm gate’ activities that are critical to food security, including processing, packaging, distributing, retailing, cooking and...

Since the mid-1990s, the aim of keeping climate change within 2 8C 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 is, however, only just beginning. As the UN commences a...

Bioenergy systems play a key role in the UK’s energy future because they offer the triple benefits of being renewable, sustainable and incurring lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than fossil fuels, such as coal, oil or gas. When biomass is utilized as an energy source, carbon dioxide (CO2) that was recently captured from the atmosphere by plant...

With climate change, an increasingly important focus of scientific and policy discourse, the Russian government has aimed to position the country as one of the leaders of the global process for addressing climate change. This article reviews a breadth of literature to analyze the politico‐economic situation in Russia with regard to international cl...

The international community recognises climate change as one of the greatest threats facing the social, environmental and economic well-being of human-kind. At a national level, the UK has demonstrated a clear international lead in responding to climate change by putting the need for and delivery of greenhouse gas emissions reductions on a stat...

http://www.supergen-bioenergy.net/home/News/2013/09/16/greenhouse%20gas%20report

https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:196968&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF

The ongoing exclusion of aviation and shipping emissions from UK carbon budgets further tests the veracity of the coalition's claim to be the "greenest government ever" say the authors of this Tyndall Centre Briefing Note.

Policy Update The UK Climate Change Act 2008 requires the UK Government to decide by the end of 2012 whether and how it will include international aviation emissions in the Act's emission reduction framework. The decision will follow two public consultations and will be announced within the context of a double-dip recession and assertions that expa...

Background: The current UK energy system relies heavily on shipped imports of fossil fuels. As climate change policies drive energy system decarbonization, fuel imports are likely to change. Results: Based upon future energy scenarios devised by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change and a set of contrasting trading assumptions, this arti...

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 inventories and slow progress towards a mitigation strategy,...

How climate change science is conducted, communicated and translated into policy must be radically transformed if 'dangerous' climate change is to be averted.

Understanding climate change is pivotal to addressing the global demand for food.Although the extent to which climate change will exaserbate existing stresses or create new challenges is highly uncertain, finidng ways to respond within this context is essential because: a) A delayed response will lead to further accumulations of greenhouse gases an...

Climate change presents shipping with the need to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Low carbon technology is considered a crucial element in rising to this challenge, demonstrated at the political level by regulation on the energy efficiency of new-builds. This paper analyses wind power as one category of technology in order to contribute to t...

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmenvaud/879/879vw.pdf

The Copenhagen Accord reiterates the international community's commitment to 'hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius'. Yet its preferred focus on global emission peak dates and longer-term reduction targets, without recourse to cumulative emission budgets, belies seriously the scale and scope of mitigation necessary to meet...

Each year greenhouse gas emissions remain high the climate mitigation and adaptation challenges grow. The economic downturn was already in train in 2008, yet concentrations of CO 2 increased unabated. Without concerted effort across all sectors there will be little chance of avoiding ‘dangerous climate change’ and the aviation sector has a clear ro...

Delivering reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation sector requires support and action from all tiers of government. There has been considerable focus on the policies that can be implemented at international and national levels; however, sub-national bodies can also play an important and influential role. In order to identify what t...

AbstractThis 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 a 60% reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide. The r...

Air transport plays an ever more important role in tourism. However, air transport already has a 40% share of all tourism CO2 emissions and 54–75% of radiative forcing (UNWTO, UNEP, WMO, 200847. UNWTO, UNEP, WMO. 2008. Climate Change and Tourism: Responding to Global Challenges, Madrid: UNWTO. View all references, figures for 2005). Furthermore, th...

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.

It is generally accepted - the US administration excepted - that the emissions reduction targets agreed in the Kyoto Protocol are only the beginning of what needs to be achieved in international climate negotiations. While studies suggest that major emission reductions by industrialized countries can be achieved at low economic cost, both these and...

The aviation sector is in turbulent times. On top of increased security concerns, oil price rises and health scares, it now finds itself at the centre of the climate change debate. Previously highly resilient to short-term ‘shocks’, it remains unclear as to how the aviation sector will respond to persistent and significant pressure to mitigate its...

Well before President Putin ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the debate had begun as to the appropriate form of any post-Kyoto agreement. Amongst the emission reduction regimes being considered is that of Contraction and Convergence; conceived by Global Commons Institute (GCI) as a practical interpretation of the philosophy that “every adult on the pla...

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 and outlines the motivations for the project. The stu...

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 scenarios. The five scenarios produced through this p...

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 dominate the target-setting agenda, long-term targets do not h...

The 2007 Bali conference heard repeated calls for reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 50 per cent by 2050 to avoid exceeding the 2 degrees C threshold. While such endpoint targets dominate the policy agenda, they do not, in isolation, have a scientific basis and are likely to lead to dangerously misguided policies. To be scientifically...

European nations agree they must tackle escalating greenhouse gas emissions arising from energy consumption. In response, the EU has set an emission reduction target for 2050 chosen to correspond with stabilising the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases at a level likely to avoid 'dangerous climate change' or to not exceed a 2ºC rise above...

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 carbon-emitting sector. This paper calculates the proportion of carbon...

The transition to a low carbon energy system must occur in the context of numerous uncertainties that occur at all scales, from the extent of the carbon reduction required through to the technologies and policies which will bring the reductions about. Against this background, the Tyndall Decarbonisation Scenarios project has sought to develop a new...

Presents a range of possible techno-economic and social scenarios of decarbonisation within the UK, including quantitative and qualitative analyses and interpretations.