Beyond the Carbon Economy: Energy Law in Transition. Edited by DONALD N. ZILLMAN, CATHERINE REDGWELL, YINKA O. OMOROGBE and LILA K. BARRERA-HERNANDEZ

Abstract

The balance of established economies will be very substantially decarbonised within the lifetime of most readers of this journal. The UK's electricity generation sector for example, in order to meet the Climate Change Act's emission reduction targets, will almost fully have to decarbonise by 2030. Simultaneously, reliance on power generation will increase as transport and heat producing activities shift from hydrocarbon fuels to electricity. As the largest CO 2 emitting sector in the UK (at 28% of the total, of which fossil fuels account for over 75%), this is a vast challenge to be replicated across almost all other industry sectors. Similar reductions are being contemplated elsewhere, and not only in the developed world. The drivers of this unprecedented energy transition include not only climate change, but also security of energy supply, forecasts of ever growing global-energy demand, difficulties in maintaining and increasing investment levels in energy supply facilities and energy deprivation. Quite sensibly, ‘peak oil’ arguments do not figure in this volume and the policy consequences of the crystallising consensus on anthropogenic climate change are weightiest among the arguments.