Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 115, April 2018, Pages 397-408
Energy Policy

Do energy scenarios pay sufficient attention to the environment? Lessons from the UK to support improved policy outcomes

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.01.028Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Scenarios have an important role in the development of national energy policy.

  • More holistic scenarios therefore have the potential to improve policy outcomes.

  • Human behaviour should be considered more fully alongside technological changes.

  • Transparency in assumptions underlying energy scenario modelling should be improved.

  • Energy pathways that do not consider environmental impacts may be unachievable.

Abstract

Scenario development is widely used to support the formation of energy policy, but many energy scenarios consider environmental interactions only in terms of climate change. We suggest that efforts to develop more holistic energy pathways, going beyond post hoc analysis of environmental and social implications, can usefully draw on environmental scenarios. A detailed content analysis of UK energy and environmental scenarios was therefore undertaken, with energy scenarios selected on the basis that they were recent, had a direct link to energy policy, and covered a range of scenario types. The energy scenarios rarely considered societal drivers beyond decarbonisation and focused on quantifiable parameters such as GDP, while the environmental scenarios provided a richer narrative on human behaviour and social change. As socio-economic issues remain fundamental to the success of energy policies, this is a key area which should be better addressed within energy scenarios. The environmental impacts of energy scenarios were rarely considered, but could have a significant bearing on the likelihood of pathway outcomes being realised. Fuller evaluation of the environmental interactions of energy systems is therefore required. Although the analysis focuses on the UK, some international scenarios show similar limitations, suggesting that the conclusions are more widely applicable.

Introduction

There is growing international momentum to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change, with the Paris Agreement enshrining the aspiration to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels (UNFCC, 2015). In parallel, the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and initiatives such as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets (Convention on Biological Diversity, 2012) and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005) seek to mainstream the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services within policy at international, national and regional levels. The UK has been a global leader across these domains by establishing a legally binding set of carbon budgets and targets (Committee on Climate Change, 2015a), and in the integration of ecosystem services within policy development informed by the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (2011). As such we focus on the UK as an exemplar to explore integration of energy and environmental scenarios in policy development. Therefore, whilst the focus of this paper is on the UK, there is an important opportunity to learn lessons for scenarios that focus on other countries.

National policy decisions are commonly informed by energy scenarios (Berntsen and Trutnevyte, 2017), and this has been particularly the case in the UK over the past decade. The 2008 Climate Change Act established a long-term target for the decarbonisation of the UK economy, to be achieved by a set of diminishing five-year ‘carbon budgets’ between 2008 and 2050. This statutory combination of long-term change and step-wise progression has encouraged the proliferation of quantitative energy scenarios in the UK since 2008, with energy policy development informed particularly by scenarios produced by the government's official advisory body, the UK Committee on Climate Change (CCC) (Winskel, 2016).

Scenarios are defined as a postulated sequence or development of events, and can be either explorative (considering the evolution of possible futures from a pre-set storyline) or normative (exploring ways to achieve a specific future objective), with intermediate approaches also possible (van Vuuren et al., 2015). Scenario development allows for the consideration of alternative futures and their evolution from the present, and thus provides insights into the decisions required in the near-term (Hughes, 2009). UK energy scenarios typically focus on decarbonisation, energy security, investment requirements and affordability (the ‘pillars’ of the energy trilemma) (DECC, 2014); they consider the whole energy system or discrete elements of it; they have been commissioned by academia, industry, the Government and Non-Governmental Organisations; and they use qualitative and quantitative approaches (Trutnevyte et al., 2016; McDowall et al., 2014; Holland et al., 2016a; Skea et al., 2011). Fulfilling these combined objectives set by multiple actors presents an enormous challenge, not least as there is considerable uncertainty about energy futures, particularly for the longer-term time horizons to 2050 and beyond.

However, despite this range, almost all energy scenarios considered in recent reviews (Trutnevyte et al., 2016; McDowall et al., 2014; Holland et al., 2016a) have in common (by the nature of the questions they have been conceived to address) a relatively narrow consideration of environmental consequences beyond those associated with greenhouse gas emissions. The post hoc evaluation of the environmental implications of energy pathways does take place both in the UK and internationally, for example for pollutant emissions and water use (Howard et al., 2011), in terms of effects on biodiversity (BIO by Deloitte, IEEP and CEH, 2014) and through Life Cycle Assessment (Hammond et al., 2013). However, this is rarely an integral component of the scenario development itself. Limitation of energy scenarios to considering one environmental externality, greenhouse gas emissions, seems short-sighted especially in light of other legal obligations and international commitments on, for example, biodiversity.

Also, failure to consider the broader environmental consequences of energy futures brings the risk that the pathways described may have negative environmental consequences or may miss opportunities to deliver ancillary environmental and social benefits (Holland et al., 2016a). Thus, the credibility of the pathways produced may be undermined, the underlying assumptions of the energy models may be brought into question, or pathways may be generated that are unrealistic in practice. A recent example of the unintended impacts of narrowly defined, decarbonisation-focused energy policy was the UK Government's prioritisation of carbon emissions reduction as the primary mechanism for sustainable mobility, which incentivised the purchase of diesel vehicles and led to increases in air pollution (Brand, 2016, Skeete, 2017).

A further limitation of post hoc assessment is that the analysis is almost invariably undertaken later, and by a separate agency. This means that the two-way interactions between energy systems and environmental systems are not taken fully into account in such cases; post hoc analysis considers the impact of energy systems on the environment but not how environmental factors enable or constrain the future development of energy systems. Post hoc analysis many not be comprehensive and is likely to have weaker policy impact than a more holistic approach in which wider environmental and social concerns are addressed directly during the development of energy pathways.

An ‘energy only’ approach may also not reflect emerging governance practices. Already within the UK, the Government's industrial strategy green paper (HM Government, 2017) is explicit on the need to reconsider its approach to the energy ‘trilemma’ and to place greater emphasis on the affordability of energy and the economic growth potential of the low carbon sector in developing its policies for addressing climate change. In addition, UK energy policy does not reflect the rise of integrative and holistic policy and research framings which bridge across food, water and climate (Cairns and Krzywoszynska, 2016). This concept of nexus thinking has emerged as a means of building synergies across different sectors and transcending traditional policy silos (Sharmina et al., 2016). Water, energy, and food have been at the core of nexus concepts (e.g. United Nations, 2014), with increasing calls for wider environmental and socio-ecological considerations to be incorporated within the paradigm (de Grenade et al., 2016).

Closer integration of energy and environmental scenarios has been proposed as one route to ensuring that energy strategies take account of broader environmental, economic and social objectives (Holland et al., 2016b). In order to explore the potential of such integration in the development of energy policy, we have undertaken a detailed analysis of UK energy and environment scenarios encompassing a broad range from those based on quantitative modelling through to qualitative studies. We have focussed primarily on the development of ‘whole systems’ pathways, as these are most appropriate in the context of the development of national energy policy. We examine the key features of the scenarios and assess their commonalities, differences and the consistency between them. In particular, we discuss the lessons that can be learned from the environmental scenarios, and conclude with recommendations for the development of future energy scenarios.

Section snippets

Scenario selection

The analysis considered eight scenario sets: three of which explored the possible response of the natural environment to broad societal change, while five focused on the future energy landscape (Table 1). A ‘scenario set’ is defined here as the overarching study, within which there may be multiple individual scenarios. There are many scenario sets that propose relevant scenarios; Holland et al. (2016a), for example, identified six environmental and 13 energy scenario sets for the UK. In this

Scenario types

Within the eight scenario sets, 56 individual scenarios were identified (of which 18 were environmental) with between two and 17 scenarios in each set (Table 1). Two approaches were used in deriving the scenario characteristics. The first was a matrix-type approach, in which the characterisation of the future societies tended to reflect increasing divergence between alternative world views based on, for example, the strength of market influence or the varying role of local, national and

Discussion

It is important to note that the scenarios reviewed had a wide range of aims, from seeking specific, cost-optimised energy outcomes to exploring, in general terms, the environmental challenges that might result from different futures. The purpose of this discussion is not to suggest that individual scenarios were inadequate if they failed to address issues that were beyond their scope. Instead, we seek to explore the lessons that can be learned from the synergies and contrasts between the

Conclusions and policy implications

Although our analysis focused on the UK, there are a number lessons for the development of energy and environmental scenarios in other contexts. The quantitative, focused approach employed by energy scenarios may allow their stated aims such as minimising the costs of tackling climate change to be adequately met, but the paradigm under which these scenarios are constructed is a reflection of a deceptively narrow policy perspective. Where energy scenarios have broader aims (such as to explore

Acknowledgements

This research formed part of the programme of the UK Energy Research Centre and was supported by the Research Councils UK under the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council award EP/L024756/1, with additional support from the NERC-funded ADdressing Valuation of Energy and Nature Together (ADVENT, NE/M019640/1).

References (73)

  • N. Hughes

    Towards improving the relevance of scenarios for public policy questions: a proposed methodological framework for policy relevant low carbon scenarios

    Technol. Forecast. Social. Change

    (2013)
  • N. Hughes et al.

    Methodological review of UK and international low carbon scenarios

    Energy Policy

    (2010)
  • W. McDowall

    Exploring possible transition pathways for hydrogen energy: a hybrid approach using socio-technical scenarios and energy system modelling

    Futures

    (2014)
  • M. Sharmina et al.

    A nexus perspective on competing land demands: wider lessons from a UK policy case study

    Environ. Sci. Policy

    (2016)
  • Jean-Paul Skeete

    Examining the role of policy design and policy interaction in EU automotive emissions performance gaps

    Energy Policy

    (2017)
  • P. Söderholm et al.

    Governing the transition to low-carbon futures: a critical survey of energy scenarios for 2050

    Futures

    (2011)
  • P. Thornley et al.

    Sustainability constraints on UK bioenergy development

    Energy Policy

    (2009)
  • E. Trutnevyte et al.

    Energy scenario choices: insights from a retrospective review of UK energy futures

    Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev.

    (2016)
  • D.P. van Vuuren et al.

    Pathways to achieve a set of ambitious global sustainability objectives by 2050: explorations using the IMAGE integrated assessment model

    Technol. Forecast. Social. Change

    (2015)
  • M. Beck et al.

    The epistemic, ethical, and political dimensions of uncertainty in integrated assessment modelling

    Wiley Interdiscip. Rev.: Clim. Change

    (2016)
  • BIO by Deloitte, IEEP and CEH

    Towards integration of low carbon energy and biodiversity policies

    (2014)
  • P. Bishop et al.

    The current state of scenario development: an overview of techniques

    Foresight

    (2007)
  • S. Casalegno et al.

    Regional scale prioritisation for key ecosystem services, renewable energy production and urban development

    PloS One

    (2014)
  • J. Chilvers et al.

    'Realising transition pathways for a more electric, low carbon energy system in the UK: challenges, insights and opportunities'

    Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part A: J. Power Energy

    (2017)
  • Committee on Climate Change, 2015a. The Fifth Carbon Budget The next step towards a low-carbon economy. Report...
  • Committee on Climate Change, 2015b. Power sector scenarios for the fifth carbon budget. October 2015. Convention on...
  • Creedy, J., Doran H., Duffield S., George N., Kass G., 2009. England’s Natural Environment in 2060–Issues, Implications...
  • DECC

    The carbon plan: delivering our low carbon future

    (2011)
  • DECC

    Delivering UK Energy investment

    (2014)
  • DECC

    Updated energy and emissions projections 2015

    (2015)
  • P. Ekins et al.

    The UK Energy System in 2050: Comparing Low-Carbon, Resilient Scenarios

    (2013)
  • ETI

    UK Scenarios for a Low Carbon Energy System Transition

    (2015)
  • N. Eyre et al.

    The Way We Live From Now On: Lifestyle and Energy Consumption

  • Foresight

    Powering Our Lives: Sustainable Energy Management and the Built Environment

    (2008)
  • T.J. Foxon et al.

    The UK Low Carbon Energy Transition: Prospects and Challenges

    (2013)
  • GAD

    National Population Projections: 2010-based. A National Statistics publication prepared by the Government Actuary in consultation with the Registrars General

    (2002)
  • Cited by (17)

    • How does government attention matter in air pollution control? Evidence from government annual reports

      2022, Resources, Conservation and Recycling
      Citation Excerpt :

      Balderas Torres et al. (2020) use the archived documents in presidential websites for publications to study the attention paid by Mexican presidents to climate change. And in the field of environment, the research about government attention is also rising rapidly (Wang et al., 2018; Hooper et al., 2018; Salvia et al., 2021; Peterson, 2021). In China, Government Annual Reports (GARs) are extensive guidance papers akin to the Queen's Speech and the State of the Union address (Yang and Zheng, 2020), and have been used to analyze a variety of problems, including governments' attention allocation.

    • Conceptual framework for balancing society and nature in net-zero energy transitions

      2021, Environmental Science and Policy
      Citation Excerpt :

      A holistic approach to appraising and developing low carbon energy scenarios will be critical to ensuring that these transitions are sustainable and publicly acceptable. In providing this approach, our framework answers the call for the coupling of social and environmental priorities within energy modelling (Hooper et al., 2018). This framework highlights how sustainability and public acceptance should be seen as central, not simply complementary, to achieving net-zero emissions targets by mid-century.

    • In search of wind farm sustainability on the Yucatan coast: Deficiencies and public perception of Environmental Impact Assessment in Mexico

      2021, Energy Policy
      Citation Excerpt :

      Although some national governments include strict environmental regulations for individual renewable energy projects at the local level (Vaissière et al., 2014), globally, energy scenarios include limited considerations of environmental consequences beyond those associated with greenhouse gas emissions. These scenarios do not consider environmental externalities, especially regarding national and international legal obligations and commitments on biodiversity and other local environmental issues (Hooper et al., 2018). This problem is particularly important in view of the fact that many of these countries, like Mexico, are among the most bio-diverse on the planet.

    • A review of the role of bioenergy modelling in renewable energy research & policy development

      2020, Biomass and Bioenergy
      Citation Excerpt :

      Over recent years most energy scenarios typically focus on the ‘pillars of the energy trilemma’ - environmental performance, energy security (supply & demands) and affordability. With the true design of scenarios being to highlight the cheapest option for providing energy that meets the minimum requirements of climate and energy security policy targets [61]. This same approach applies to many leading bioenergy scenario analyses that have historically been used to highlight the levels of performance of bioenergy systems compared to alternative renewable or fossil fuel technologies.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text