Thread by @danialsturge

As part of our Rethinking Decarbonisation Incentives (RDI) project we @EnergySysCat have published a report that lays out our key findings from the past 18 months and recommendations for future carbon policy for clean growth (es.catapult.org.uk/news/rethinkin…) #ESCnetzero

For reference, we use ‘carbon policy’ as a shorthand for a wide set of policies that create economic incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (including pricing, regulation, subsidies, and standards) #ESCnetzero

We produced a set of six key findings (see below). The remainder of this thread discusses those key findings in turn, before ending up with our recommendations for policy makers #ESCnetzero

1. The UK has a complex mix of policies, which give rise to uneven and incomplete incentives to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the economy #ESCnetzero

2. Reaching net zero will require strong and coherent economic incentives to reduce emissions and spur innovation across all sectors of the economy. However, to date progress in reducing emissions in the UK has been imbalanced #ESCnetzero

3. International experience highlights the challenges associated with ambitious attempts to implement economy-wide carbon pricing #ESCnetzero

4. Fortunately, there are a broad range of options to improve UK carbon policy and address anomalies and distortions, but there are no easy wins #ESCnetzero

5. The UK needs to develop a pathway towards more coherent incentives for emissions reduction across the economy based on a complementary mix of policies, with the following key considerations #ESCnetzero

6a. We found that carbon standards could play a key role in a pathway to a more coherent economy-wide framework of incentives, especially for decarbonising the residential heat sector #ESCnetzero

6b. The following set of key learnings for designing a carbon standard will inform our next phase of work to design a low carbon heat standard #ESCnetzero

All of this led us to six recommendations for policy makers. Acting on the following will help put the UK on course for meeting its legally binding targets to reduce emissions in a cost-effective way #ESCnetzero

So, while our work on RDI draws to an end, we plan to continue working on these themes. If you’d like to work or collaborate with us in any of the following areas, please get in touch #ESCnetzero

For further reading, all the reports published as part of the RDI project can be found here: es.catapult.org.uk/impact/project… #ESCnetzero