Energy and Climate Change

Bol Partner

This book traces the spreading out of energy policy from being a relatively narrow concern of the Brussels anti-trust division and market liberalisers, to becoming the focus of renewed worry about energy dependence on a resurgent Russia, and to developing into the Union's highest profile international policy through EU leadership on climate change. The book assesses progress towards these different goals of energy policy--competitive market structure, secure supply, a low carbon economy--and argues that while they are not always equally achievable for all EU states, the policy trade-offs are easier for member states in a Union than as countries standing alone.Nonetheless, it points out that the EU could use its continental scale to better effect in energy saving, research and nuclear cooperation, as well as in providing energy security. It notes how member states have valued EU energy policy enough to let its development run ahead of formal treaty provisions. But for such advances to continue, the EU has to stay useful and relevant to member states' concerns. So the EU should re-order its priorities: to consolidate and police existing liberalisation rather than pursue new and possibly counter-productive market restructuring; to be more realistic about its energy relationship with Russia; and to be more ambitious on climate change goals, but more economically rational in achieving them.The book has recommendations for internal energy market, energy security and climate change policies. It concludes curbing carbon emissions in a cost-effective way must be the EU's top energy priority, and therefore renewable and bio-fuel plans should be made more rational.

Bol

For more information on this title, including student exercises, please visit , http://www.people.ex.ac.uk/DAColey/Energy and Climate Change: Creating a Sustainable Future provides an up-to-date introduction to the subject examining the relationship between energy and our global environment. The book covers the fundamentals of the subject, discussing what energy is, why it is important, as well as the detrimental effect on the environment following our use of energy. Energy is placed at the front of a discussion of geo-systems, living systems, technological development and the global environment, enabling the reader to develop a deeper understanding of magnitudes.Learning is re-enforced, and the relevance of the topic broadened, through the use of several conceptual veins running through the book. One of these is an attempt to demonstrate how systems are related to each other through energy and energy flows. Examples being wind-power, and bio-mass which are really solar power via another route; how the energy used to evaporate sea water must be related to the potential for hydropower; and where a volcano"s energy really comes from.With fermi-like problems and student exercises incorporated throughout every chapter, this text provides the perfect companion to the growing number of students taking an interest in the subject.