Great Britain’s mixed progress in decarbonising neighbourhoods and the implications for net-zero

Peer-reviewed paper 2-039-26

The Carbon & Place project (www.carbon.place) has created annual consumption-based carbon footprints for each of the 43,064 Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA) in Great Britain from 2010 to 2020.  LSOAs are statistical neighbourhoods with a population of around 1,500–3,000.  Neighbourhood carbon footprints offer a detailed insight into the spatial and socio-economic distribution of energy consumption and carbon footprints that can shed light on where, by whom, and why consumption occurs and where it can be reduced.

In this paper, we show updated data for 2021 and 2022, adding the post-COVID recovery and explore the differing rates of decarbonisation across Great Britain over the last thirteen years.  While the consumption-based carbon footprint of the median neighbourhood has changed little over this period, rising by 1.7%.  There is evidence of divergence, with some footprints falling by 22% while others have risen by 18%. This is in the context of UK territorial emissions having fallen by a third over the period, but a greater share of consumption-based emissions is embedded in imports from abroad and international travel.

We examine the distinctive characteristics of areas with falling and rising carbon footprints and try to understand why decarbonisation is and is not occurring in various places and what this means for place-based decarbonisation policy in the UK.  In particular, we discuss the trade-offs of how local policies such as poverty alleviation may result in locally rising carbon footprints, but from a low base, and how identifying the highest carbon neighbourhoods may allow for targeted policies that may be more effective at reducing overall carbon emissions, even if emissions in many local areas are rising slightly.

Read the full paper in Energy Demand.

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