cc: b.summers@uea,r.g.goodall@uea,g.bentham@uea,f.woodhams@uea, n.jackson@uea,m.hulme@uea,t.jickells@uea,m.pallister@uea,c.flack@uea
date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 16:27:33 +0000
from: Trevor Davies <t.d.davies@uea.ac.uk>
subject: UEA and the Carbon Trust
to: v.watts@uea

The advance guard of the Carbon Trust visited today.

Mike Hulme and I speculated with them thus:-

UK Gvt is "down" after The Hague, and is looking to re-inject momentum into
the CO2 reduction scene in order to retain UK's perceived lead in this area.

One of the real challenges for Carbon Trust type of work is integration
between serial projects, and into the real world.

What about a demonstration/R&D project which will address two points above?

That is, take UEA as an experimental community. But not totally
disconnected from the real world. So also consider transport (local
authorities will need to be involved). And take (say) 20 "representative"
staff households, as deep connections into the rest of the world. Then  do
a total carbon audit. Then, over a period of 10 or so years, reduce
global-UEA emissions by x%. Our starting point is that x should be 60.
Sixty per-cent because this is the value which will start to make a
difference in climate terms.

UEA is good for a number of reasons, including mix of retro-action- where
we need to do serious work on 40 yr old buildings anyway, and we are
entering a major building phase. (We are also struggling with a tranport
policy). As far as the Carbon Trust (& Gvt) is concerned, here is the
"perfect" demonstration R&D project which will give some substance to what
many people regard as the abstraction of Kyoto - conciousness-raising, how
feasible/painful, what is involved, do we need to revise our ambitions etc.

The Carbon Trust wants to continue to talk about this.

This would be of significant worldwide interest (BBC have already booked
their seats). 

Clearly, absolutely everything depends on amount of support. If the Carbon
Trust confirms that it wants to run with this, then there will have to be a
long period of negotiation. In the meantime, we need to remain very
circumspect and low-key.

Now the crunch - is UEA prepared to try to ride this horse? Mike's & my
view is that this is a FANTASTIC potential opportunity for UEA. Clearly,
the only commitment at this stage is to talk.


Trevor


++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Professor Trevor D. Davies
Dean, School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom

Tel.  +44 1603 592836
Fax.  +44 1603 507719
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
