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Cold homes and climate change. Engaging with the key energy challenges for real people and communities. Institute of Sustainability, Health and the Environment University of the West of England 21 April 2009 Simon Roberts Chief Executive Centre for Sustainable Energy.
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Cold homes and climate change Engaging with the key energy challenges for real people and communities Institute of Sustainability, Health and the Environment University of the West of England21 April 2009Simon RobertsChief ExecutiveCentre for Sustainable Energy
“Human history is a race between education and catastrophe” HG Wells
“Never underestimate the power of the human mind to invent new ways to use energy” Prof Tadj Oreszczyn Director of UCL Energy Institute
Do we know… • …what constitutes a ‘safe and healthy’ internal temperature? • …the impact of ‘cold homes’ on social exclusion and educational achievement? • …how best to reduce the misery of cold homes?
Do we know… • …which interventions make most difference to the ability of households to curb their carbon emissions? • …how to create low carbon sustainable living within existing communities in the existing built infrastructure? • …how best to develop within communities a sense of responsibility for achieving its own contribution to a lower carbon future?
Key challenges for ISHE • To be a beacon of sustainability in your own right • To develop genuine cross-discipline research and thinking • To engage with real practitioners to help create a robust evidence base of what actually works • To make your research policy relevant and engaging for policy-makers • To stimulate real change in thinking in the next 5 years
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world ” Anne Frank, Aged 15 Rachael Nee. Carbon Based Forms. ‘Flight’. Smoke, graphite, pastel on board. Bristol 2006