Decarbonising the UK's Freight Transport

与之前的能源和汽车一样，英国货运业目前正处于摆脱对化石燃料依赖的社会技术转型的边缘。这一过渡将需要对机队和基础设施进行重大投资，导致资产和商业模式中断，并将引发重大重组。尽管化石燃料淘汰规模的扩大最有可能发生在本世纪30年代以后，但未来10年的投资对于实现这一过渡至关重要，并有助于缓解“难以减少”的货运行业以及英国贸易所面临的过渡风险。我们应对这一挑战的理念是建立一个广泛但相互关联的学术精英网络，与货运脱碳领域的关键和领先利益相关者整合，共同开发和应用关于快速货运脱碳的知识和理解。我们将使用这个网络来收集和提炼当前的知识，并确定和消除剩余的关键研究挑战，这些挑战可以释放重大的货运脱碳目标投资，并指导扶持政策。该网络将EPSRC进行的五项货运投资与英国货流(国际和国内)脱碳的完整系统方法的记录联系起来，并与行业和政策制定者密切整合和嵌入研究。该网络的努力将以英国货运的一些特点为指导，包括：(I)大量固定基础设施，投资时间长；(Ii)就每种方式的具体技术解决方案缺乏共识；(Iii)国家和国际运输系统的复杂组合(Iv)除公路和铁路网外，公共部门投资的范围有限；(V)涉及英国、欧盟和国际(联合国)监管的复杂治理。该网络将与英国政府和现有倡议直接协调和整合，包括(I)工业战略(Ii)清洁增长战略(Iii)走向零的道路(Iv)清洁海事理事会(V)联合国机构论坛(Vi)世界银行碳定价领导联盟(Vii)正在进行的使投资与脱碳保持一致的工作：欧洲投资银行、英国私营部门机构、国际金融公司和国际货币基金组织，以及领先的投资非政府组织：2度投资、世界经济论坛、全球海事论坛、全球托运人论坛、英国自由贸易协定。为了实现该网络为货运脱碳释放大量投资的目标，它被组织成五个多模式和交叉的主题领域，并通过三步法执行：主题1：数据和模型在解锁执行决策方面的作用主题2：管理宏观经济、政策和技术的不确定性，同时减轻投资决策中的气候风险主题3：燃料和推进技术途径主题4：使脱碳投资/政策的驱动因素与当地(包括空气污染)保持一致，英国欧盟和全球气候政策，并融入私营部门决策主题5.将物流的发展与脱碳货运相结合步骤1：将当前的知识和观点提炼成一组集中的研究问题，涵盖五个主题中的每一个步骤2：启用一系列(~13)个小项目，以进一步了解这些问题和适合解决这些问题的方法步骤3：结合小项目的成果，提炼网络的知识，以制定推动货运脱碳投资的战略，以及描述一系列可维持网络的进一步合作和筹资活动的议程和计划

Like energy and automotive before it, UK freight transport is now on the cusp of a socio-technical transition away from fossil fuel dependency. This transition will require major investment to fleet and infrastructure, cause disruption to assets and business models, and will trigger significant reconfiguration. Whilst the scaling up of fossil phase-out is most likely to occur from the 2030s onwards, the next 10 years of investments are critical to enabling the transition, and to mitigating transition risks to the "hard to abate" freight sectors, and by association UK trade. Our concept to address this challenge is for a Network of broad but interconnected academic excellence integrated with key and leading stakeholders in freight decarbonisation, that collaboratively develops and applies knowledge and understanding of rapid freight decarbonisation. We will use this Network to collect and distil current knowledge, as well as to identify and de-risk the key remaining research challenges that can unleash significant freight-decarbonisation targeted investment and guide enabling policy. This Network connects five freight transport investments made by the EPSRC with a track record of a whole systems approach to decarbonisation of UK freight flows (international and national), and of closely integrating and embedding research with industry and policy makers alike. The Network's efforts will be guided by a number of features of UK freight transport including: (i) significant fixed infrastructure with long timescales for investment (ii) lack of consensus on the specific technological solutions for each mode (iii) a complex combination of national and international transport systems (iv) besides the road and rail network, a limited scope for public sector investment (v) Complex governance involving a mix of UK, EU and international (UN) regulation. The Network will align and integrate directly with UK government and existing initiatives including (i) Industrial strategy (ii) Clean Growth Strategy (iii) Road to zero (iv) Clean Maritime Council (v) UN agency fora (vi) World Bank's Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (vii) ongoing work on aligning investment to decarbonisation with: European Investment Bank, UK private sector institutions, IFC and IMF, and leading investment NGOs: 2 degrees investing, World Economic Forum, Global Maritime Forum, Global Shippers Forum, UK FTA. To achieve this Network's objective of unleashing significant investment for freight decarbonisation, it is organised into five multi-modal and cross-cutting thematic areas and executed through a three-step approach:Theme 1: Role of data and models for unlocking implementation decision makingTheme 2: Managing macroeconomic, policy and technology uncertainty, whilst mitigating climate risk in investment decisionsTheme 3: Fuel and propulsion technology pathwaysTheme 4: Aligning drivers for decarbonisation investment/policy with local (inc. air pollution), UK, EU and Global climate policy and integrating into private sector decision makingTheme 5. Coupling the evolution of logistics with decarbonizing freightStep 1: Refinement of current knowledge and perspectives into a focused set of research questions covering each of the five themesStep 2: Commissioning of a series (~13) small projects which can develop further understanding of these questions and the methods suitable for addressing themStep 3: Distillation of the Network's knowledge, in combination with the outputs of the small projects, to produce a strategy to drive freight decarbonisation investment, and an agenda and plan describing a series of further collaboration and funding activity that can sustain the Network