cc: b.summers@uea,r.g.goodall@uea,g.bentham@uea,f.woodhams@uea, n.jackson@uea,m.hulme@uea,t.jickells@uea,m.pallister@uea,c.flack@uea date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 09:18:12 +0000 from: Trevor Davies subject: Re: UEA and the Carbon Trust to: vincent watts ,v.watts@uea OK, I'll fix up a meeting with you, Brian, Richard, Mike Hulme, Graham Bentham and me to start with. Over a 10-15 year period we could reduce substantially without creating too many riots. Everything depends on how ambitious we can be - carbon-friendly materials for the building programme, persuading the city to use electric buses for their new service, staff collection points etc. Of course, part of the project could be a desk-study - this is what we would have saved if we had fitted sensible windows in the old buildings etc, but the real value of this project would be to actually DO it. The Carbon tax will raise 250-300M a year, but much is likely to go back to industry via reductions in NI. The CT still anticipates a fund of 50M a year, however. They are still groping for the way forward, so are v. open to suggestion. The body language was open when we raised the suggestion last week. We need to follow it up with a few pages, & a great enthusiasm from the university, & promote it as a universal prototype. Trevor At 22:09 05/02/01 +0000, vincent watts wrote: >Lets talk > >One thing some of us have been doing is trying the Toyota hybrid car. We >achieved around a 30% saving in fuel over about 400 miles of mixed drivers >and mixed driving. Over 10 years replacing all the cars(normal replacement >period) by something similar would do much to get carbon saving without >creating riots in the streets. > >At 16:27 02/02/01 +0000, Trevor Davies wrote: >>The advance guard of the Carbon Trust visited today. >> >>Mike Hulme and I speculated with them thus:- >> >>UK Gvt is "down" after The Hague, and is looking to re-inject momentum into >>the CO2 reduction scene in order to retain UK's perceived lead in this area. >> >>One of the real challenges for Carbon Trust type of work is integration >>between serial projects, and into the real world. >> >>What about a demonstration/R&D project which will address two points above? >> >>That is, take UEA as an experimental community. But not totally >>disconnected from the real world. So also consider transport (local >>authorities will need to be involved). And take (say) 20 "representative" >>staff households, as deep connections into the rest of the world. Then do >>a total carbon audit. Then, over a period of 10 or so years, reduce >>global-UEA emissions by x%. Our starting point is that x should be 60. >>Sixty per-cent because this is the value which will start to make a >>difference in climate terms. >> >>UEA is good for a number of reasons, including mix of retro-action- where >>we need to do serious work on 40 yr old buildings anyway, and we are >>entering a major building phase. (We are also struggling with a tranport >>policy). As far as the Carbon Trust (& Gvt) is concerned, here is the >>"perfect" demonstration R&D project which will give some substance to what >>many people regard as the abstraction of Kyoto - conciousness-raising, how >>feasible/painful, what is involved, do we need to revise our ambitions etc. >> >>The Carbon Trust wants to continue to talk about this. >> >>This would be of significant worldwide interest (BBC have already booked >>their seats). >> >>Clearly, absolutely everything depends on amount of support. If the Carbon >>Trust confirms that it wants to run with this, then there will have to be a >>long period of negotiation. In the meantime, we need to remain very >>circumspect and low-key. >> >>Now the crunch - is UEA prepared to try to ride this horse? Mike's & my >>view is that this is a FANTASTIC potential opportunity for UEA. Clearly, >>the only commitment at this stage is to talk. >> >> >>Trevor >> >> >>++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >>Professor Trevor D. Davies >>Dean, School of Environmental Sciences >>University of East Anglia >>Norwich NR4 7TJ >>United Kingdom >> >>Tel. +44 1603 592836 >>Fax. +44 1603 507719 >>++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Professor Trevor D. Davies Dean, School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ United Kingdom Tel. +44 1603 592836 Fax. +44 1603 507719 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++