Decarbonising the UK's Freight Transport

就像之前的能源和汽车一样，英国货运现在正处于摆脱化石燃料依赖的社会技术转型的风口浪尖。这一过渡将需要对机队和基础设施进行重大投资，导致资产和业务模式中断，并将引发重大重组。虽然化石燃料逐步淘汰的规模最有可能从21世纪30年代开始扩大，但未来10年的投资对于实现转型至关重要，并有助于减轻“难以减少”的货运行业的转型风险，并与英国贸易相关。我们应对这一挑战的概念是建立一个广泛但相互关联的学术卓越网络，与货运脱碳的主要利益相关者相结合，共同开发和应用快速货运脱碳的知识和理解。我们将利用该网络收集和分析当前的知识，并确定和降低剩余的关键研究挑战的风险，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运流（国际和国内）脱碳的整个系统方法的跟踪记录联系起来，并与行业和政策制定者密切整合和嵌入研究。 该网络的工作将以英国货运的一些特点为指导，包括：（一）投资时间长的重要固定基础设施;（二）对每种模式的具体技术解决办法缺乏共识;（三）国家和国际运输系统的复杂组合;（四）除了公路和铁路网之外，公共部门投资的范围有限（v）复杂的治理，涉及英国、欧盟和国际（联合国）法规的混合。该网络将直接与英国政府和现有倡议保持一致和整合，包括（i）工业战略（ii）清洁增长战略（iii）零排放之路（iv）清洁海事理事会（v）联合国机构论坛（vi）世界银行的碳定价领导联盟（vii）正在进行的将投资与脱碳结合起来的工作：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，该网络分为五个多模式和交叉主题领域，并通过三步方法执行：主题1：数据和模型在解锁实施决策中的作用主题2：管理宏观经济，政策和技术不确定性，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），英国，欧盟和全球气候政策，并融入私营部门的决策主题5。将物流的发展与脱碳货运相结合第1步：将现有知识和观点细化为一组集中的研究问题，涵盖五个主题中的每一个第2步：委托一系列（约13个）小项目，这些项目可以进一步理解这些问题以及适合解决这些问题的方法第3步：提炼网络的知识，结合小型项目的产出，制定推动货运脱碳投资的战略，以及描述一系列进一步合作和资助活动的议程和计划，以维持网络

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