In association with:
At the conference we will be running three parallel or ‘breakout’ sessions each with six streams, featuring exciting and innovative work challenges of delivering net zero – from academia, practitioners and business. Proposals were submitted at the beginning of 2020 and the selection process has been completed.
The research conference will focus on building the foundations and policies of the low carbon transition aimed at achieving a net zero carbon society in a way that is fair and just.
It will examine the technology, economic, financial and societal challenges for net zero heat, transport and industry :
These three issues are highly relevant to every single one of the parallel themes and therefore do not exist as standalone themes themselves.
Business models, digitalisation and markets: heat, transport, industry, big data, automation, data protection, ownership models, regulation, market structure, decentralisation, energy as a service
Demand: future prospects, efficiency, demand reduction, flexibility, electrification
Energy and other resources: resource availability, critical materials, geopolitics, transport, security, prices
Energy production and supply: fossil fuels, electricity, ‘molecules’ (e.g. hydrogen, ammonia), heat, energy storage, carbon capture, multi-vector systems, sector coupling, flexibility
Consumers and energy publics: public attitudes and acceptance, social movements, workers, civil society organizations, consumer protection, fuel poverty
Environment and ethics: broader environmental risks and benefits; distributional justice, procedural justice, intergenerational justice, environmental justice; sustainable development goals
Finance: investment needs; funding sources; research, development and demonstration
Governance and policies: national/regional/local/international institutions, carbon budgets and accounting methods, market-based instruments, regulation, voluntary measures, divestment and transition policies
Innovation: Research and development, public and private investment, new technologies, difficult to decarbonise sectors
International: leakage, consumption based emissions, border trade adjustments, export potential for low carbon technologies
Macro-economy: GDP impacts of net-zero, low-carbon industrial strategy, export markets, post-growth theories
Whole energy systems and infrastructure: multi-vector analysis, whole systems analysis (incl. socio-economic and socio-technical analysis), electricity and hydrogen networks, CO2 pipelines and storage, district heating, stranded assets, repurposing of existing infrastructure, decentralised systems.