key themes from the academic community

The Delivering Net Zero (DNZ) project seeks to bring together and explore a range of cross-sector expert perspectives to identify where consensus does and does not exist on how the UK should deliver net zero. The project is undertaking three rounds of deliberative workshops during 2021.

The first round convened 42 top academics from across the research community during two workshops in February and March 2021. Each workshop divided experts into three broad topic areas: energy supply, energy demand and greenhouse gas removal. During these workshops, participants were taken through a consensus building process that sought to develop solutions for short term (next 10 years) and long term (up to 2050) emissions reductions.

Participants were split into groups according to their specialism, each answering one of the following questions: 1. How do we achieve decarbonisation of UK energy supply in the short and long term? 2. How much can the UK reduce its energy demand in the short and long term? 3. How much carbon can the UK remove from the atmosphere in the short and long term?

This report provides an overview and initial analysis of these workshop outcomes. It identifies and discusses the broad, cross-cutting themes that emerged, and subsequently goes into greater detail on the differences in consensus that emerged across the workshops in relation to the topic areas of energy supply, energy demand and greenhouse gas removal.