Litterbugs: How to deal with the problem of littering
March 2009
Litterbugs highlights the blight of littering in the UK, identifies a lack of systematic logic in enforcement policy and proposes new means of cracking down of those responsible.
Warm Homes
January 2009
Government efforts to improve energy efficiency in the existing housing stock have been slow and expensive. The grants available are too complicated to administer and have had to be applied for on a household-by-household basis, with those that do wish to upgrade required to cover a large part of the upfront costs. This has resulted in millions of homes not applying for the grants to which they are eligible and those unable to find the cash for upfront installation costs being excluded.
In addition, such a variety of organisations are responsible for the delivery of energy efficiency improvements, including the Warm Front Scheme and the Energy Saving Trust, that effective joined up action is prevented and the costs of bureaucracy increased. To quickly install basic energy efficiency measures in every household that needs them, the structures of energy efficiency finance and delivery have to change. Warm Homes makes recommendations on how to achieve this.
The Root of the Matter
August 2008
In tackling climate change, policy makers often overlook the role of the natural world in regulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere: specifically, the unique role that forests and peatlands have to play in the battle against rising emissions. Changing approach would significantly reduce the cost of tackling climate change and deliver a variety of other benefits.
Six Thousand Feet Under: burying the carbon problem
June 2008
The UK is missing the opportunity to be a world leader in tackling climate change due to Government inaction.
This report argues that Carbon Capture and Storage is essential to meet UK CO2 targets and deliver clean electricity and that the UK is ideally placed to spearhead a new movement to cutting carbon emissions internationally. This however is not happening: The UK CCS effort is slowing down, whilst other countries are speeding up, innovation by industry is stifled by over-management of a £1.5bn white elephant project. The UK can use electricity market finance to deliver new technology to slow climate change.
Green Dreams: a decade of missed targets
May 2008
Green Dreams looks at the Government’s “green” targets over the last ten years highlighting a worrying high failure rate with little to show for hundreds of targets set. Examining the issue in more detail the report looks at exactly what has gone wrong over the last decade. Based on the lessons learnt the report suggests ways to ensure that targets be an effective tool of government, deployed simply and clearly to motivate change, rather than as a political tool that can hinder good governance as much as promote it.
Is Britain Ready for Carbon Capture and Storage
April 2008
The UK is missing the opportunity to be a world leader in tackling climate change due to Government inaction.
This report argues that Carbon Capture and Storage is essential to meet UK CO2 targets and deliver clean electricity and that the UK is ideally placed to spearhead a new movement to cutting carbon emissions internationally. This however is not happening: The UK CCS effort is slowing down, whilst other countries are speeding up, innovation by industry is stifled by over-management of a £1.5bn white elephant project. The UK can use electricity market finance to deliver new technology to slow climate change.