Are Net Zero and economic growth compatible?

Louise is the Chief Economist at the CBI and a member of its Executive Committee. She and her team provide business leaders with advice on the UK economic outlook and global risks. Building on the insights from members, she shapes the CBI’s overall view on economic and fiscal policy and leads the CBI’s discussions with senior politicians and policymakers in these areas. Louise also oversees the CBI’s economic consultancy business CBI Economics.

Before moving into the role Louise was the Director of Economic Policy at the CBI. She led the CBI’s policy work on tax and regulation, as well as developing the CBI’s strategy and evidence base for enhancing the competitiveness of the UK’s business environment. Prior to joining the CBI, Louise spent 13 years at HM Treasury as a member of the Government Economic Service, where she led on a number of different analytical and policy issues, including National Living Wage policy and assessing the economic and distributional impacts of policy measures at fiscal events.

Louise holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Bristol and studied Economics and International Development at Bath University.

Antonios Katris has been a member of the Centre for Energy Policy (CEP) since 2015 and is currently a Senior Research Fellow. His research focus spans across multiple areas of energy policy, currently focusing on the fuel poverty support measures and the development of low-/zero-carbon fuels. He mainly uses computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to study the economy-wide impacts of net zero interventions and policies and identify trade-offs and implications for policy and other stakeholders (academic and non-academic).

His body of research work includes areas such as the improvement of energy efficiency in residential properties, the electrification of private transportation and residential heating, exploring the impacts of decarbonising industries and offshoring industrial activity, and the potential impacts of nuclear decommissioning in the Scottish economy. More recent research topics include the implementation of social and smart electricity tariffs, the differences in socio-economic impacts between fuel poverty support actions and the implications of the transition to net zero in local economies. Antonios holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Stirling.

Peter has over thirty years of experience working on a wide range of energy and climate change policy issues. He currently holds a joint appointment at the University of Leeds as Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems in the Schools of Earth and Environment and Chemical and Process Engineering. Peter has acted as advisor to a number of United Nations organisations, the International Energy Agency, the European Commission and various UK government departments. His research is strongly interdisciplinary, combining engineering, economics and policy to explore transitions to sustainable low-carbon energy systems. He contributes to several large national research centres including the UK Energy Research Centre, Energy Demand Research Centre, Supergen Energy Networks Hub, Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy.

Prior to joining the University of Leeds, Peter was Head of the Energy Technology Policy Division at the International Energy Agency in Paris from 2007 to 2011, responsible for high profile publications such as the Energy Technology Perspectives and the Energy Technology Roadmap series. In an earlier consultancy career, he was Technical Director of a major UK energy and environmental practice.

Peter graduated from the University of Nottingham in 1990 with a BSc in Physics, Applied Physics and Electronics and subsequently gained both an MSc in Environmental Technology (1991) and a PhD in Energy Policy (1995) from Imperial College, London.