Is there an electoral politics of the allocation of industrial decarbonisation resources?

Houses of Parliament. Located in London, England, UK. Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

One of the more challenging aspects of the net zero agenda is how to decarbonise heavy industry. Industries such as metals (including iron and steel), minerals, chemicals, food and drink, paper and pulp, ceramics, glass and oil refineries account for about 16% of UK territorial emissions, both from energy use and from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced directly from industrial processes, such as calcination in the production of cement. Industry is commonly seen as a ‘hard to abate’ sector of the economy. A lot of industry is also exposed to international competition, so unless there is support from government there is a risk that it will close down and relocate, rather than actually cut emissions.

Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group Facebooktwitterlinkedin
Posted in All Posts, Energy Governance and Policy, Political economy of energy, Politics of energy and energy institutions

A closer look at the UK government’s big climate and energy reshuffle

As covered in last week’s blog, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has reshuffled his cabinet and split the business energy and industrial strategy department in two. What does all this mean? Is it window dressing and intra-government manoeuvring or a necessary reset? Marc Hudson takes a deep dive. 

BEIS is dead! Long live the EsNZ! In an announcement last week, Rishi Sunak, currently the UK Prime Minister, reshuffled his cabinet and also rearranged some big government departments.

Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group Facebooktwitterlinkedin
Posted in All Posts, Energy Governance and Policy, Politics of energy and energy institutions

Making government deliver or rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic? Climate policy and the new government departments

By Matthew Lockwood

What does today’s restructuring of government departments mean for climate policy? Badged as being about making government deliver, the Prime Minster announced a relatively major reorganisation, with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) being broken up, a new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero being created and business going to international trade to form a new Business and Trade Department. Meanwhile the innovation parts of BEIS will be merged with digital in a new science, innovation and technology department.  

Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group Facebooktwitterlinkedin
Posted in All Posts, Energy Governance and Policy, Politics of energy and energy institutions

How carbon capture and storage was brought back from the dead, and what happens next

By Marc Hudson

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is often promoted as a technology that will square circles.  One of those circles, in the United Kingdom, is the political need to “level up” the industrial left-behind areas of the north (the so-called ‘red wall’ seats) while also pushing towards a “net zero” economy by 2050.

Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group Facebooktwitterlinkedin
Posted in All Posts, Energy Governance and Policy, Energy infrastructure, Energy systems and supply technology, Fossil fuels, Politics of energy and energy institutions

The Dynamics of Global Public Research Funding on Climate Change, Energy, Transport, and Industrial Decarbonisation

By Benjamin K. SovacoolChux Daniels and Abdulrafiu Abbas

This blog was first published on 15 December 2022 on the  Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) blog. The original can be found here.

Thirty years of climate research funding have overlooked the potential of experimental transformative technologies.

A new study by academics from the University of Sussex Business School Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), which used a transformative innovation framework, discovered the academic disciplines and technologies contemporarily disregarded by research funding bodies in the universal efforts to combat climate change.

Read more ›Follow Sussex Energy Group Facebooktwitterlinkedin
Posted in All Posts, Energy infrastructure, Energy Innovation and Digitalisation, Energy systems and supply technology

Follow Sussex Energy Group on Twitter

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the individual authors and do not represent Sussex Energy Group.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 102 other subscribers.

Archives

Subscribe to Sussex Energy Group's quarterly newsletter