Alf Young, Assistant Editor of The Herald, chaired this informative afternoon of presentations and questions on October 24th 2008 in Glasgow, Scotland. The speakers addressed carbon emissions in the light of the Institution’s four key themes.

Energy
 
Brian Wilson, former Energy Minister, argued that the three imperative of a responsible energy policy are security of supply, affordability and carbon reduction. These three need to be in balance. He supports both nuclear power and renewable energy as cornerstones of the low carbon energy mix but they must be supported by demand reduction.

Education

Prof. Kenny Miller, Vice-Principal of Strathclyde University described what the universities are doing to develop the skill needed to meet the challenges.

Transport

Frances Duffy, Director of Strategy and Investment, Transport Scotland, described the measures her organisation is taking to reduce emissions. In Scotland, transport presently accounts for 21.5% of green house gas emissions. Over 805 of this is from road transport. To try to shift travel patterns, rail electrification is being implemented in the central belt. A landslide study is being carried out on the road network.

Environment
 
Peter Head, Director of Arup, gave an inspiring vision of the sustainable city of the future. Based on a study of Manchester he showed buildings growing food on roofs and algae in tubes up the outside. The roads were free of motor vehicles and tree-lined. The investment to achieve this transformation could come from pension funds which were looking for ‘safer’ ways of investing our money. This requires large projects. Peter is project director for planning and development of Dongtan Eco-city demonstrator in Shanghai and Wanzhuang Eco-city near Beijing. Can we achieve this in the UK?