Sustainability has finally taken centre stage as an issue which individuals, businesses and governments must take seriously. There is also a growing realisation that personal and organisational behaviour change is central to the debate. However, there is still an imperfect evidence base on how people make sustainable choices and the best ways for government to influence those choices.
Some of the key questions for our ‘Delivering sustainable development' research programme include:
What is the right balance of incentives and sanctions?
How can public service organisations provide a lead?
Does a low carbon economy require big sacrifices in economic growth? Are large cuts in emissions technologically feasible? This PricewaterhouseCoopers report, which updates an earlier analysis in 2006, addresses these and other burning issues and concludes that global carbon emissions could more than double by 2050 in a 'business as usual' scenario, but in fact need to be cut by around a half by that date in order to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at acceptable levels. The report comments on some of the key conditions needed to achieve this without undue economic costs, including the global pricing of emissions through an appropriate mix of carbon markets and carbon taxes and the role of governments in setting clear long-term targets for reducing global emissions. The report argues that action is needed now on a wide range of fronts such as increased energy efficiency, greater use of renewables and nuclear power, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and reversing deforestation.
The appetite for addressing climate change has never been greater and with the publication of the Climate Change Bill and the energy white paper, the direction of current UK Government policy is now clearer. While views are regularly expressed by consumers and individual businesses, there is a lack of hard and fast evidence on business opinion in this area. To understand the perceptions of business, PricewaterhouseCoopers commissioned a survey of companies across a wide spectrum of industries to understand business’ views of the UK Government’s use of tax and regulation to manage the environmental impact of business.
At the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly hosted by the German EU Presidency in Wiesbaden from 23-27 June 2007, PricewaterhouseCoopers officially released an independent report entitled "Sustainability impact assessment of the Economic Partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and the ACP countries". This study, conducted by a consortium led by PricewaterhouseCoopers (including Maeander Ltd. and the NGOs GRET and Forum pour l’Afrique) at the request of the European Commission, not only evaluates the economic impact, but also looks at environmental and social consequences of future trade deals between the EU and the ACP and concludes that changes in trade alone, will not necessarily lead to sustainable development.
A new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers on “Building trust in emissions reporting” highlights the key characteristics of the world's main emission trading schemes, presents a new vision for compliance in emissions trading and calls for global action to develop this.
IPPR report
A combination of rising levels of car ownership and increasing travel by car has led to two major problems associated with road transport for the UK: growing levels of congestion and increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which already form a significant proportion of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Road pricing – the variable charging of road space by time and location – could be useful in successfully combating these problems. But, despite a broad ‘elite’-level consensus on the principle of road pricing in the UK, public attitude arguably remains the key barrier to its introduction.
The rapid economic growth of emerging countries such as China and India — together with continued more moderate growth in today’s advanced economies — could have serious long-term consequences for global energy consumption and carbon emissions.
