Moving towards low carbon society, John Barrett, University of Leeds.
Video credit: UKRI
On-screen captions and an autogenerated transcript is available on YouTube.
In the run-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), we asked our researchers to tell us about their work and the challenges of tackling climate change.
Professor John Barrett is a Professor in Energy and Climate policy at the University of Leeds, and is also part of the Centre for Research into energy demand solutions.
John’s work is focussed on how we can quickly move towards a low carbon society to tackle climate change, and by using computer modelling. He says there are three options:
- try to reduce the amount of carbon in the energy that we use
- try and bury the carbon underground
- reduce the amount of energy that we use.
John says:
This is quite a big challenge because our energy demand touches every single element of our life. This includes the way we travel, the way we heat our homes, the materials and products that we buy, the holidays that we take, the way we want to interact with our friends, the way that we work.
The good news is that we can actually halve our energy demand in the UK, while maintaining a high quality of life for everyone.
Last updated: 3 November 2021