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Between February and July 2009, ICE took verbal and written evidence from over 50 organisations involved in planning, designing, operating and maintaining the UK´s infrastructure.
We asked a range of questions , including:
- Which low carbon engineering solutions have the potential to deliver major reductions in emissions over the next 50 years?
- How can low carbon infrastructure create behaviour change?
- What legislation, regulation and market incentives are needed to deliver wholesale change?
- What are the political, social, economic and institutional barriers to delivering low carbon infrastructure and, in turn, a low carbon economy?
The inquiry´s findings confirmed that infrastructure can help deliver the wholesale change in behaviour and use of resources required to reduce emissions by 80% against 1990 levels by 2050.
Contributors also stressed the need to act urgently. The first deadlines for reducing emissions are drawing closer and the lead time for new infrastructure development can be long.
When it came to the actions required from government, industry and the engineering profession to help deliver low carbon infrastructure, our inquiry identified a degree of consensus. There is widespread support for immediate action to reduce demand, maximise efficiency and develop a systems approach to reducing emissions across infrastructure networks.
While our inquiry has identified a wide range of technologies that are viable and could be rolled out at the scale required, views on priorities differ widely. Contributors acknowledged that building public support for the changes required will be a major and essential challenge.
In this context the engineering profession has the skills to develop practical solutions to real-world problems. It will need to take an active role in developing a public and political consensus on how the UK´s infrastructure should look in 2050 and the action needed to realise this vision.
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