• Energy Research

Non-technical summaryWe summarize some of the past year's most important findings within climate change-related research. New research has improved our understanding about the remaining options to achieve the Paris Agreement goals, through overcoming political barriers to carbon pricing, taking into account non-CO2factors, a well-designed implementation of demand-side and nature-based solutions, resilience building of ecosystems and the recognition that climate change mitigation costs can be justified by benefits to the health of humans and nature alone. We consider new insights about what to expect if we fail to include a new dimension of fire extremes and the prospect of cascading climate tipping elements.Technical summaryA synthesis is made of 10 topics within climate research, where there have been significant advances since January 2020. The insights are based on input from an international open call with broad disciplinary scope. Findings include: (1) the options to still keep global warming below 1.5 °C; (2) the impact of non-CO2factors in global warming; (3) a new dimension of fire extremes forced by climate change; (4) the increasing pressure on interconnected climate tipping elements; (5) the dimensions of climate justice; (6) political challenges impeding the effectiveness of carbon pricing; (7) demand-side solutions as vehicles of climate mitigation; (8) the potentials and caveats of nature-based solutions; (9) how building resilience of marine ecosystems is possible; and (10) that the costs of climate change mitigation policies can be more than justified by the benefits to the health of humans and nature.Social media summaryHow do we limit global warming to 1.5 °C and why is it crucial? See highlights of latest climate science.

ABSTRACTFor sustainable development, accepting limits is one of the two guiding principles identified by the Brundtland Commission (the other one being satisfying human needs). This can be achieved by slimming an economy, limiting the total amount of resources it consumes. While stabilizing resource consumption at the present levels seems to be a minor challenge, dematerializing the economy sufficiently to allow for equitable consumption of all the Earth's citizens, while reducing environmental pressures significantly, is a major challenge.A means to implement this could be a cap to resource use, combined with access allocation mechanisms not specified in this paper. With a depreciation of the input volumes, the result would be a change in the economic dynamics, and in the very functioning of the respective society and economy. Distribution issues would gain prominence, social security would be a key concern, private property would need to be complemented by a more efficient method of product use such as product sharing, and corporate ownership structures might change significantly.It has been questioned whether such a resource‐limited economy could still be a market‐driven one. By identifying some of the objections as based not on reality but on methodological flaws of economic theory, it can be shown that a market economy can survive such transformations, albeit with the need to complement it by other allocation mechanisms.The resulting society might still be called a capitalist one; it would significantly differ from current capitalism, but not resemble past socialist economies. Rather than categorizing it as one or the other, or than deriving new ‘‐isms’, the discussion should focus on the practical means to pursue the sustainable transformation of our societies and economies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Improving residential energy efficiency is widely recognised as one of the best strategies for reducing energy demand, combating climate change, and increasing security of energy supply. However, progress has been slow to date due to a number of market and behavioural barriers that have not been adequately addressed by energy efficiency policies and programmes. This study is based on updated findings of the European Futures for Energy Efficiency Project that responds to the EU Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2014–2015 theme ‘Secure, clean and efficient energy’. This article draws on five case studies from selected European countries—Finland, Italy, Hungary, Spain, and the UK—and evaluates recent energy efficiency developments in terms of indicators, private initiatives, and policy measures in the residential sector. Our analysis shows that the UK government has implemented a better range of policies, coupled with initiatives from the private sector, aimed at improving energy efficiency. However, its existing conditions appear to be more problematic than the other countries. On the other hand, the lack of effective and targeted policies in Finland resulted in increased energy consumption, while in Hungary, Spain and Italy some interesting initiatives, especially in terms of financial and fiscal incentives, have been found.

The DEsign EDucation and Sustainability (DEEDS) project, funded by the European Union's Leonardo da Vinci Programme, comprises a partnership of five institutions from the European design and sustainable development communities that embraces higher education, research and practice. This paper outlines the background, evolution and outcomes from the project which currently include a set of core principles, Skills, Creating change agents, Awareness – systemic and context, Learning together, Ethical responsibilities and Synergy and co-creating (SCALES), diverse resources available via a website, an evolving teaching and learning landscape of 'pods' (the PodScape), new student projects and more. DEEDS has embraced a platform of mutual learning by engaging diverse members of design communities with various actors and stakeholders to create a participatory platform for embedding 'sustainability into design and design into sustainability'.

The anthropocene is the age where human influences are determining the development of the planet's ecosystems and thus the bio-physical basis of future human civilisations. Today China has become the world's largest economy and its worst polluter with per capita greenhouse gas emissions surpassing the EU average, the world's largest consumer of all kinds of resources. Even regarding the aggregate contribution to climate change (historical emission residues included), called the climate debt, China has not yet, but will be most probably climbing the top position rather soon. At the same time China is the world's largest victim of environmental change, including air and soil pollution, water and land scarcity, biodiversity loss and climate change. Thus not only slowing down the increase but reducing emissions should be a top priority for China, and it is: the government has taken some bold steps. China is the world's largest investor in renewable energies, has the largest afforestation program, and leads the world in reducing carbon dioxide emission reduction. As the largest polluter it has extraordinary opportunities to improve the global state of the environment – is it the world's last best hope for establishing a global ecological civilisation? Some implications regarding the Chinese environmental policy are discussed, some strengths highlighted and some weaknesses identified. However, despite their magnitude, the efforts–and in particular their implementation–are not yet sufficient. We suggest three additional steps which could help China to begin reducing its climate debt within a couple of decades, define a long term perspective for policy planning and adjust its growth model to the challenges of the anthropocene.

While there is much debate on transformative change among academics and policymakers, the discussion on how to govern such change is still in its infancy. This article argues that transformative governance is needed to enable the transformative change necessary for achieving global sustainability goals. Based on a literature review, the article unpacks this concept of transformative governance. It is: integrative, to ensure local solutions also have sustainable impacts elsewhere (across scales, places, issues and sectors); inclusive, to empower those whose interests are currently not being met and represent values embodying transformative change for sustainability; adaptive, enabling learning, experimentation, and reflexivity, to cope with the complexity of transformative change; and pluralist, recognizing different knowledge systems. We argue that only when these four governance approaches are: implemented in conjunction; operationalized in a specific manner; and focused on addressing the indirect drivers underlying sustainability issues, governance becomes transformative.