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Anthropogenic climate change is well established, with historical emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols causing 1.1C warming today, and rising at +0.2C/decade. At this rate the Paris Agreement's 1.5C warming threshold is reached within two decades. For policymakers this proximity means that the anthropogenic warming rate is one of the most important variables to constrain today. Several methodologies exist to determine warming contributions utilizing Earth observations and climate models of varying complexity. However, many of these approaches do not establish the impact of recent emissions trends in short-lived aerosol pollutants, and consequently may underestimate the present-day rate of warming. This thesis begins by investigating the CO2, non-CO2 greenhouse gas, and aerosol contributions to anthropogenic global warming today, focusing on evidence presented by trends in satellite and in-situ observations. These trends are attributed to anthropogenic and natural sources using simplified climate models, informed by full-complexity general circulation models, to assess the observational evidence for an aerosol-induced warming acceleration. The simplified modelling approach is then pursued to evaluate physical constraints on future policy. For CO2, the use of a 'remaining carbon budget' - the emissions compatible with a warming threshold - simplifies policy objectives until net zero. However, the combined physical requirements of CO2 and non-CO2 mitigation 'budgets' is complicated by the varied lifetimes and efficacies displayed by non-CO2 pollutants, resulting in a non-trivial relationship between emissions and warming. In this thesis, I show how the forcing-equivalent metric can produce physically-coherent estimates of individual pollutants' contribution to the remaining budget. Finally, I explore the physical conditions required for warming stabilisation, based on a mathematical framework describing the long-term properties of the carbon and thermal cycles. As a whole, my work demonstrates how models and observational constraints can be combined to provide the physical guide rails over which climate policy can be optimised.

British woodlands today provide a variety of ecosystem services, from carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation all the way to recreation and flood prevention. Given that the country only has 13% woodland cover, there is a pronounced drive for woodland cover increase; 30,000 ha and more annual woodland creation are planned until 2050, not least to meet the UK government's Net Zero targets. While Britain has over 100 years' worth of experience with woodland creation already, realised woodland creation in recent years has significantly fallen short of its targets. The British landscape is a cultural and crowded landscape, where most every piece of land already serves a range of land covers and land uses; integrating many thousand hectares of new (often native broadleaf) woodland into this complex landscape is difficult, as it may elicit undesirable trade-offs. As one potential solution, natural colonisation, i.e. the colonisation of trees on previously non-wooded land, is being introduced as a cheap and easy way to create structurally diverse woodlands (especially compared to active planting). Championed by the rewilding movement, natural colonisation is a relatively new approach to expanding woodlands and knowledge on its extent and how much it can really contribute to Britain's woodland expansion plans is limited to non-existent. This thesis explored emerging opportunities for native woodland expansion in these crowded future landscapes to help shed light on potential ways forward. In doing so, it analysed historic drivers of woodland expansion in Britain, including afforestation targets and realised afforestation, to understand legacies of forestry history and valuable lessons to learn for the future. It also focussed on the approach of natural colonisation by using a landscape-scale case study area in North Wales as a basis for an investigation of existing spatial data and observational site visits, as well as a grounded theory approach and semi-structured interviews with farmers and other land managers on the extent and potential of natural colonisation in creating new native woodlands. A key finding of this research is that woodlands today must provide more (diverse) benefits than ever before and must do so in a time with more competing interests than ever. Furthermore, this increased complexity is the main reason why realised afforestation has been falling short (compared to the targets) since the 1980s, and an overreliance on woodland creation targets remains ill-advised until there is a clear plan on what trade-offs will be accepted on a national, regional, and local level in the pursuit of native woodland expansion. Such considerations must also include a revision of the metrics used for these woodland expansion targets, as the amount of land covered in trees has no linear relationship anymore with the provision of those ecosystem services new woodlands will be created for. What the complexity of woodland expansion drivers also did, however, is offer new possibilities of creating native woodlands, specifically via natural colonisation. Unlike what might have been the case in the 20th century, natural colonisation can now provide a range of benefits 21st century woodland expansion in Britain is looking for. A key finding of this research is that natural colonisation can unlock areas of woodland expansion where active planting is not suitable; more so, unintended natural colonisation is able to circumvent land management barriers that hinder other options of woodland expansion. Natural colonisation cannot yet be found on any available spatial datasets on tree cover, but recent natural colonisation already exists, and a lot of it matches areas identified as woodland expansion opportunities. Overall, natural colonisation should be emancipated as an equal and valid approach to 21st century native woodland expansion. It is an embrace of the crowdedness of the British landscape and its drivers, where no one 'perfect' woodland fits all, but the more options available for expanding woodlands, the more likely the targets and plans, whichever way they will look like, can be achieved.

The present global efforts to tackle climate change stipulate an objective of limiting global temperature rise to 2°C by the end of the century while pursuing measures to keep it below 1.5°C. An in-depth investigation of climate change mitigation strategies was carried out, detailing 3 major approaches, namely emissions reduction, atmospheric carbon removal and radiative forcing geoengineering. On the basis of the findings, it was determined that current emission reduction efforts, as well as future emission reduction commitments announced globally, are insufficient to meet the 2015 Paris agreement targets, and that carbon removal must be integrated with emission reduction efforts in order to reduce global temperatures over the coming decades. Based on an assessment of the prominent carbon removal technologies, it was determined that carbon removal via industrial biochar systems is a very promising approach. Accordingly, the dimensions related to biochar-based carbon removal systems were explored in detail. This covered potential feedstocks, feedstock analytical techniques, potential production technologies, biochar properties with a special focus on carbon stability, the impact of processing configurations on production yield and biochar properties, as well as potential by-product valorization routes. Furthermore, the investigation discussed the concept of biochar as a negative emissions technology and introduced potential carbon reservoirs and a variety of value-adding applications. Moreover, the current status of the emerging carbon removal economy and participation requirements were presented. Overall, with the emergence of the new carbon removal economy, research focused on system design, process optimization, and techno-economic-environmental assessments of biochar-based carbon removal projects was found to be critical moving forward. As prospective feedstocks, several materials, including olive tree pruning residues, sesbania sesban, and cotton stalks, were investigated experimentally. Kinetic models were developed for the pyrolytic degradation of such materials using a sophisticated thermo-kinetic tool, Advanced Kinetics and Technology Solutions (AKTS), and conversion predictions were constructed under various heating configurations. The results of the investigations provided a comprehensive understanding of the materials' behaviour during pyrolysis and the information aided in subsequent modelling and optimization. Moreover, olive tree pruning residue biomass was selected for further investigation. Finally, the carbon removal potential of an industrial biochar system in Spain was holistically examined. The objective was to assess the techno-economic environmental aspects of large-scale olive tree pruning residue pyrolysis for atmospheric carbon removal, using an integrated assessment framework that is based on current market dynamics. The framework included i) biochar production and optimization, ii) biochar characterization, iii) plant design and process modelling, iv) life cycle analysis, v) carbon removal quantification, and vi) economic modelling. Production optimization using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was carried out, aiming to maximize yield, production throughput and stable carbon content while prioritizing stability. It was determined that optimized biochar production was attained at 650°C and 15 min residence time. Furthermore, a biochar plant with a biomass processing capacity of 6.5 tonne per hour (20% moisture content) was designed for further analysis. A thermodynamic model was developed using Advanced System for Process Engineering (ASPEN Plus) software, and the process was determined to be self sufficient with the availability of surplus energy. Moreover, a life cycle assessment (cradle-to-grave) revealed that approximately 2.68 tCO2 are permanently removed from the atmosphere per tonne of biochar produced, after accounting for the carbon footprint of the entire process. This corresponds to a carbon removal capacity of 3.26 tCO2 per hour and the removal of approximately 24,450 tCO2 annually. The economic assessment revealed that the project is profitable; however, profitability is sensitive to pricing of the carbon removal service and biochar. A project internal rate of return (IRR) of 22.35% was achieved at a price combination of EUR 110 per tonne CO2 removal and EUR 350 per tonne biochar, and a feedstock cost of EUR 45 per tonne (delivered with 20% moisture), where service and product pricing are both within the lower bound of market pricing. If the project was exclusively designed to offer a carbon removal service, a minimum price of EUR 206 per tonne CO2 removal is required to achieve project profitability, based on the same feedstock cost. The results indicate the feasibility of biochar-based carbon removal systems, however, the business model, type of feedstock, choice of technology, pricing decisions and ability to negotiate favourable terms and prices for feedstock supply are critical to the success of this approach. The findings demonstrate the viability of immediately deploying large-scale biochar-based carbon removal via pyrolytic conversion of olive tree pruning residues to address the climate crisis.

The potential of saltmarshes to store carbon has recently been gaining increasing interest in the Scottish policy arena, particularly in the face of the recently declared climate emergency. Yet, while there are first estimates of saltmarshes' overall carbon storage capacity, there is still significant uncertainty concerning the average soil depth of Scottish saltmarshes, and thus their total organic carbon stock. Moreover, other aspects, such as the value of the carbon storage ecosystem service and how it could be incorporated into Scottish policy, are under-researched. This thesis therefore takes a holistic and interdisciplinary approach connecting natural science, economics, and social science to investigate the potential of Scottish saltmarshes for climate change mitigation. A scenario approach is used to analyse the potential organic carbon stocks according to different average saltmarsh depths to reduce the uncertainty regarding the total Scottish saltmarsh stocks. A choice experiment was then conducted to investigate the Scottish public's preferences and willingness to pay for the improvement of saltmarsh ecosystem services, particularly the carbon storage service. Furthermore, the experiment tests the significance of the influence of information provision on individuals' preferences and willingness to pay. Lastly, this thesis presents an in-depth study on blue carbon policy integration based on expert-interviews to close the link between science and policy. This work suggests that even though climate change is a pressing issue, Scottish saltmarsh climate change mitigation contributions are comparatively minor and that other saltmarsh ecosystem services must not be disregarded to facilitate a prioritisation of the carbon storage service. In terms of policy integration, this means that it may be beneficial to integrate saltmarshes and their carbon storage service into the Scottish Marine Spatial Planning framework rather than climate change mitigation policy specifically.

The aim of this research is to investigate public preferences and willingness to pay for carbon capture and storage in the United Kingdom. In addition, this thesis seeks to understand the cognitive processes shaping opinion formation on carbon capture and storage, and the extent to which these influence willingness to pay. The first of these processes to be explored is political motivated reasoning. Previous studies have found evidence suggesting that an individual's perceptions surrounding climate policy is influenced by political beliefs; yet, these have rarely been explored in stated preference studies. I then go on to examine another cognitive process that has been suggested to moderate the intention-behaviour gap often observed in behaviour change studies, anticipated regret. I develop a contingent valuation survey to elicit willingness to pay from a representative sample of the UK population involving 1033 individuals. The contingent valuation study employs the double bounded dichotomous choice format and interval regression models are used to estimate WTP values and determine the factors underlying these decisions. I employ split sampling to investigate the effect of different message framings on the WTP decisions made by political partisans to determine if motivated reasoning is present. Respondents are also split into treatment groups to determine if invoking the concept of anticipated regret increases willingness to pay for CCS implementation. Mean WTP for the implementation of CCS is approximately £96. Evidence of motivated reasoning is found, albeit not in a political context. In terms of the effect of invoking feelings of anticipated regret, the environmental message frame is stronger than the economic frame. The willingness to pay expressed in this study, driven by concerns about climate change and energy security, shows that the support expressed by the government for the implementation of the technology is justified by people's preferences.

Globally, drastic biodiversity declines and the worsening climate crisis demand overhaul of existing land use policies which have failed to reconcile food production and environmental conservation. In Europe, most existing policies compensate farmers to voluntarily implement land-sharing measures, commonly referred to as wildlife-friendly farming, which seeks to deliver conservation benefits on the farmed land through agri-environment schemes (AES) offering a fixed price per hectare. Investment into sharing has continued despite the accumulation of evidence showing that, for the same amount of lost food production, substantially more would be delivered for conservation and climate change mitigation with the contrasting approach of land sparing, where high-yield farming allows large areas to be spared elsewhere in the landscape as (semi-)natural habitat. Following Brexit, the UK has the opportunity to rethink this approach; but until now policy decisions have had to be made without estimates of the relative taxpayer costs of using sharing and sparing to deliver target conservation outcomes. Addressing this critical research gap was the primary aim of this thesis, as follows. In this thesis, I sought to uncover the taxpayer and food production costs of delivering meaningful conservation outcomes with land sharing and sparing. First, I conducted a novel comparison of the costs of monitoring sharing and sparing schemes for compliance and effectiveness. Monitoring is a fundamental, though often overlooked, taxpayer cost. In terms of effectiveness monitoring, I found current monitoring levels to be insufficient to precisely determine the effects on wild species of sharing schemes; in contrast, the same effort could deliver relatively precise estimates of the much larger effects of sparing. Furthermore, turning to compliance monitoring, I found the cost-effectiveness of existing English AES could be vastly improved with more compliance monitoring; however, this may be politically unpopular with farmers. It is therefore notable that I also found relatively less money was wasted when monitoring sparing at a sub-optimal rate compared to sharing. Second, I used a discrete choice experiment involving 118 arable farmers to establish their willingness to accept (WTA) payment to participate in sharing and sparing schemes that delivered the same biodiversity and carbon outcomes. I found that all but the most farmland-tolerant outcomes were delivered at less taxpayer expense with sparing. Third, combining this assessment of farmer WTA with knowledge of how much schemes must be monitored, I compared the taxpayer costs of delivering the same environmental outcomes with fixed-price sharing and sparing schemes which paid all recruits at the WTA of the least-willing farmer required in the scheme to deliver the target outcome. I found that sparing delivered the same outcomes at less than half the taxpayer cost of sharing; and, importantly, sparing saw only 79% of the food production lost under sharing. Fourth, I examined the distribution of farmer stated WTA, finding that variation in responses was mostly driven by factors other than lost gross margin. Given marked inter-farmer variation in their stated WTA, variable-price schemes, which pay farmers their stated WTA rather than the rate required by the least-willing participant, offered savings to both sharing and sparing schemes. However, even under variable pricing, sharing was not cheaper than sparing in delivering our more farmland-sensitive outcomes. Finally, I examined whether a land-purchase strategy, where the government purchases land and then contracts organisations to manage and create habitat on it, would deliver sparing at less expense than a farm-subsidy approach. I found land purchase was more cost effective than the farm-subsidy approach if long timeframes, low discount rates and large budgets were considered; however the impacts on farming communities of largescale ownership changes warrant further consideration. To conclude, I found overwhelming evidence for UK arable farming that land sparing can deliver biodiversity and carbon outcomes at substantially lower cost than land sharing both in terms of taxpayer costs and lost food production. The relative costs of sharing would increase even more with consideration of species that do not tolerate farmland, in a country with a shorter history of agriculture where fewer habitat specialists have gone extinct compared the UK, and if the production required elsewhere to compensate greater volume of food production lost under sharing was taken into account. Furthermore, the effects of sharing may be near-impossible to precisely determine with current monitoring efforts and continued sub-optimal compliance monitoring would increase the costs of sharing-like options relatively more than the more sparing-like options of existing AES. Whilst variable pricing and land purchase may further reduce the costs of sparing, the costs of delivering meaningful environmental outcomes are most substantially reduced by pursuing a land-sparing, rather than land-sharing, approach. This work is of considerable significance to the UK government, given that prevailing land-sharing policy approaches can at best deliver less than half the environmental outcomes delivered by the same budget spent on land sparing.

Global food production is currently contributing to numerous environmental challenges including anthropogenic climate change, biodiversity loss and widespread declines in soil health. Regenerative Agriculture (RA) is an emerging paradigm which proposes that restoring soil health, by adopting a suite of management practices that align with so-called 'regenerative' principles, will not only improve agricultural productivity but also contribute to climate change mitigation through increased soil organic carbon (SOC). Despite a plethora of policies and suggested practices emerging over the past decade to support the introduction of RA across the world, there is still remarkably little scientific evidence to quantify potential improvements in soil organic carbon or agricultural productivity as a result of adopting 'holistic' RA systems. This represents a large knowledge gap that I set out to address in my DPhil thesis using currently available evidence for individual management practices. Research for my thesis was divided into four parts. First, I used gold-standard systematic review methods to collate the state of current knowledge and assemble datasets from published studies of management practices forming part of a RA approach. My study area was temperate oceanic regions and I examined papers that considered the following RA approaches: reduced tillage intensity, cover cropping and ley-arable rotations in arable systems, and rotational grazing, multi-species or herbal leys, and agroforestry in pasture systems. Second, using the datasets obtained from these published studies, I conducted Bayesian meta-analyses of the impact of these practices on SOC and agricultural productivity (crop yields, herbage production, livestock growth). I found that adoption of rotational grazing and herbal leys can increase herbage dry matter production and livestock growth rates in pasture systems, but there is currently insufficient evidence to determine their impact on SOC. Conversely, my results identified clear potential for RA practices in arable systems to increase SOC but no evidence of a SOC-yield win-win. Third, using this finding I simulated adoption of these arable RA practices across Great Britain using the soil carbon model RothC, and found that in the UK there is the potential to mitigate 16-27% of current agricultural emissions through soil carbon sequestration. Finally, I conducted semi-structured interviews with industry representatives and livestock farmers in England to further understand advantages and disadvantages of implementing rotational grazing, herbal leys, ley-arable rotations and trees on farms. This final part of my research highlighted potential constraints on the ability to realise the theoretical advantages demonstrated from my earlier analyses.

Companies are increasingly under pressure from governments, investors, and consumers to act on climate change by reducing, and ultimately eliminating, carbon emissions (decarbonisation). Yet companies continue to be held accountable for generating strong financial results and safeguard, if not maximise, shareholder value. This raises an important question: How do companies act on climate change in the face of intensifying decarbonisation and ongoing commercial imperatives? This thesis examines corporate action on climate change through three complementary perspectives on time, risk, and value. Drawing on economic geography, organisation and management, and accounting research, the thesis investigates: (1) the relationship between organisational time orientation and cor-porate carbon emissions; (2) how companies reconcile institutional demands to reduce carbon emissions (climate-stewardship logic) with pressures to create shareholder value (market logic); and (3) the determinants and capital market implications of corporate climate risk disclosures. The thesis finds that (1) long-term oriented companies generate less carbon emissions, (2) companies reconcile market and climate-stewardship logics by transforming the system-level problem of climate change into the managerial - and thus manageable - object of climate risk, and (3) self-reported corporate climate risk exposures are largely not reflected in stock market values. Together, these insights shed light on the antecedents, processes, and consequences of corporate action on climate change, an issue that has received limited attention by economic geographers to date. Overall, this thesis provides evidence on the contours of an emerging carbon economy through the eyes of its central actors - companies in carbon-intensive industries - and highlights the importance and potential of researching the ways in which companies navigate and shape the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The issue of climate change is high on the global agenda, and the hydrocarbon-rich countries of the Gulf region are no exception. While the Gulf countries initially resisted the drafting of an international climate agreement for many years, they have now finally realized that decarbonization is not only necessary for their continued existence due to the threat of climate change, but that it would assist in reducing their hydrocarbon demand and meeting their economic diversification goals. This research focuses on how Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar could achieve the decarbonization goals of their Paris Agreement (COP 21) pledges by analyzing the potential impact that various carbon reduction frameworks, such as carbon trading, carbon taxation, and command and control regulations, would have on their economic development. The key questions posed in this paper are whether carbon reduction mechanisms could be a viable way to reduce domestic hydrocarbon demand, and if so, which carbon reduction model would be preferable, and how it should be optimally designed to meet the Paris Agreement commitments? These questions are answered by examining the contours of the energy sectors of the three selected countries, the evolution of their negotiating positions during the various international climate negotiations, and an analysis of the various carbon reduction frameworks and how they might best be designed to optimally decarbonize their macroeconomies. My principal findings are that Saudi Arabia and the UAE would be best placed to implement national carbon markets in their respective jurisdictions, due to their large industrial bases and downstream sectors, as well as their relatively mature economies and growing populations. In Qatar's case, my research discovered that a command-and-control carbon reduction framework would work optimally because Qatar's small size, both in population and industrial base, would more efficiently allow direct regulation. This research is an important contribution because as it showed that the Gulf countries may have taken a circuitous route to recognize the importance of combatting climate change, but now they are investing billions of dollars in alternative (nuclear+renewable) projects, implementing robust energy efficiency codes, and announcing, in the case of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, ambitious net-zero goals. As a result, understanding how they may arrive at their Paris Agreement pledges is critical for understanding the potential evolution of the region's development and the contours of the future global energy market.

As worldwide demand for energy continues to rise significantly, the environmental consequences and climatic impacts associated with the production and consumption of fossil fuels namely coal, crude oil and natural gas has over the years received increasing attention from scientists, environmentalists, policy makers and the international community. The scientific postulation is that human activities due to the burning of fossil fuels is contributing substantially to the warming of the planet by increasing the presence of greenhouse gases, especially carbon-dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. This phenomenon, known otherwise as anthropogenic climate change, has been identified as a major contributory factor to the surge in extreme weather conditions globally such as floods, droughts, wildfires and earthquakes. The international call for a response to anthropogenic climate change has pressured states to find sustainable solutions to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and to lessen its environmental impacts. To achieve this end, a series of international conferences over the years culminated in a global climate change regime founded on the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), its 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The regime's primary objective is to achieve a global phase out of fossil fuels as primary energy resources in the shortest possible time and to transition the global economy to renewable energy and other climate friendly alternatives. This has however led to a manifold of issues over the years between industrialised and developing countries, especially regarding current responsibility for historical emissions and who should bear the greater burden to mitigate climate change. However both developed and developing countries acknowledge that there is an urgent need to curb anthropogenic emissions in order to ameliorate the detrimental impacts of climate change. The central international issue has however been how to achieve this equitably. This thesis aims to contribute to this discussion on ascertaining equitable pathways to a global energy transition, with a focus on fossil fuel producing developing countries. Focusing on the Republic of Ghana, an oil and gas producing developing country, as a single-country case study, this thesis proposes alternative policy options by which the country can exploit fossil fuel resources for socio-economic development whiles meeting its climate change mitigation commitments.

Agriculture is the principal land use throughout Europe and agricultural intensification has been implicated in large reductions in biodiversity, with the negative effects on birds particularly well documented. The Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) and the (Numenius arquata) are farmland breeding wader species where changes in farming practices has reduced the suitability and quality of breeding habitat, as well as the availability of large, soft-bodied soil prey which these birds depend upon leading to severe declines in population size that warrants them both listed on the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern in the UK. Lowland areas, where agricultural intensification has generally been most pronounced, have been worst affected. However, more recently declines in marginal upland areas, previously considered refuges for breeding wader populations, have been identified. In this thesis I investigate conservation management interventions for the benefit of farmland breeding waders of marginal agricultural grasslands in the UK. Upland areas receive high levels of rainfall and are characterised by typically peaty soils with a low buffer capacity and a high organic matter content that results in these areas being particularly prone to localised acidification over time. I use field-scale trials to experimentally test the use of lime as a potential novel conservation tool to amend acidic soil pH, thus increasing earthworms (Annelida), an important prey item of Lapwing and Curlew. I show that lime use increases soil pH, although the effect varies with time, and that earthworm numbers increased following lime with the largest effect size observed two years after liming. Above ground, I show that there was no effect of liming on the vegetation of grazed grasslands, and no effect on beetles (Coleoptera) or spiders (Aranea). Additionally, I show that wader densities were 50% higher on lime treatment plots, and that wader intake rate of large prey items was greater on lime treatment than control three years following the application of lime. Furthermore, I show strong woodland edge effects on four wader species over a distance of several hundreds of metres in the Badenoch and Strathspey, an important stronghold for these birds. This is particularly relevant in light of land-use policy of tree planting to mitigate climate change committed to by the UK Government. The results presented here in this thesis will help contribute to the development of conservation strategies for waders. My results suggest that lime use could be an important tool to mitigate localised acidification of enclosed upland grassland where earthworm numbers may have declined, alongside other well established habitat managements for these birds, and that buffer zones should be placed of at least 200m between tree planting and important wader breeding habitat.

Water managers face enormous challenges in securing future supplies of water under the uncertainty of climate change and population growth. Energy sustainability is an increasingly important factor in the planning and management of water resources. Electricity use in the water and wastewater sectors has been growing at unprecedented rates. Left unchecked, this could compromise both the affordability and sustainability of the sector. At the same time, a number of promising options exist to the industry to enhance its energy efficiency and also reduce its reliance on the energy grid, though there are few analyses of the costs and risks associated with these opportunities at the moment. Water managers need reliable decision-making frameworks and tools to understand the complex interactions between water and energy systems. Such methodological advances will be important for the sustainable planning and development of the water industry. The aim of this thesis is to introduce novel modelling techniques and frameworks that can capture the linkages between water and energy systems, for the purpose of facilitating transitions toward a more reliable, resilient, and energy sustainable water industry. Specifically, this thesis presents analytical approaches to: (1) understand the temporal evolution and drivers of electricity consumption in water-related systems; (2) model integrated water, wastewater, and energy networks; (3) model and study the costs, risks, and benefits of operational changes at high temporal resolution; and (4) map pathways to energy sustainability in the water sector under deeply uncertain futures. The tools and frameworks developed in this thesis are applied to study the water system in the Thames basin, a region considered to be `seriously water stressed' and encompassing the mega-city of London. Results from the case-study demonstrate that water-related energy use has been rising sharply in the region (10.8% per year) and this is driven by expansions in operational capacity for larger populations, as well as local climate mitigation efforts. Yet, a number of opportunities to curtail rising energy costs are also available to the local utility. Results from this thesis demonstrate that participation in energy demand-response programmes has the potential to substantially lower energy costs by up to £5.2 million per year. Further, the utility can also expand on its energy self-generation capacity using a combination of biogas, solar, and wind generation, to decrease their reliance on the local energy system and realise net-zero carbon targets.

The literature on climate politics has often treated policy as being nationally uniform, obscuring the ways in which different groups in the economy face different costs from mitigation. Chapter 2 develops a formal model of climate change policymaking in which stringency can vary across sectors of the economy. I show that if capital-owners have some disproportionate influence over the government, it should affect which sectors get targeted with mitigation policy. Chapter 3 uses “shadow price” data developed by Althammer and Hille to measure the stringency of climate policy on a sectoral level. Using multi-level modelling, I show that economic interests have an advantage over environmental ones, that producers have an advantage over consumers, and that capital receives more protection than labor. Chapter 4 examines the role of ideology, and shows that while most parties protect capital to some extent, right parties do so more than left ones. Chapter 5 tests whether broader political economy arrangements that protect labor enable or block stronger mitigation policy. I find that an enabling effect predominates: labor-intense sectors accept heavier policy burdens when labor-protective institutions and policies are stronger. Chapter 6 moves beyond shadow pricing data to look at public opinion. It offers the first many-country study to show that climate attitudes are shaped by individuals’ sector of employment. Chapter 7 concludes with a review of the results and avenues for future research.

Achieving ambitious climate change mitigation targets requires a comprehensive transformation of the energy system. As part of this transformation, early, rapid, and full decarbonisation of the electricity sector is essential. Residential buildings contribute substantially to electricity consumption, so pathways for electricity system decarbonisation similarly depend on accelerated change in the residential sector. Delivering further and faster reductions in emissions from residential buildings requires not only reductions in electricity demand but also more responsive demand. Flexibility in the residential sector can support the supply-side transition to renewable energy while also helping reduce the costs of electricity provision during times of peak demand. Understanding the potential contributions of residential buildings to ambitious mitigation pathways through demand reduction and flexibility requires more detailed characterisations of demand. In particular, it necessitates stronger evidence on the structural and occupant factors that shape electricity demand and its resulting emissions. This thesis contributes to these research areas and is guided by three primary research questions. The first focuses on improving methods for characterising residential electricity consumption, the second considers advancing our knowledge of factors influencing consumption, and the third relates to the policy implications of having deeper insight into the temporal aspects of demand. The three research questions are: • What statistical learning approaches can improve efforts to characterise residential electricity consumption patterns? • What factors explain electricity consumption in residential buildings at annual, daily, and hourly temporal resolutions? • How does a more detailed understanding of the temporal aspects of residential electricity consumption inform energy efficiency and flexibility interventions? This thesis consists of four original research papers, each of which makes methodological, empirical, and policy contributions in answering these research questions. The papers’ methodological contributions are the development and application of methods from statistical learning and the sub-fields of regularisation and sparsity. These techniques are the subject of a rich literature in statistics disciplines but are not commonly used in energy research. The papers show the utility of these techniques for analysing complex data sets and addressing challenges inherent to building energy modelling. The papers make empirical contributions to the literature on determinants of electricity consumption through statistical analyses of factors that influence consumption at different temporal resolutions in households. The variety in types of data considered, such as interval electricity, household-level survey, and time-use data, facilitates a deep investigation of the factors that shape residential electricity consumption. In this way, the papers contribute to the evidence base on effective intervention policies for achieving further demand reduction and flexibility in the residential sector. Demand-side solutions are underrepresented in the literature on climate change mitigation, but these solutions have considerable potential to achieve ambitious emissions reduction targets. They therefore require a more thorough assessment. This thesis research presents new analytical methods, data, and evidence to investigate how residential buildings can contribute to accelerated decarbonisation pathways.

Enhancing individuals' pro-environmental behaviour is a key aspect of climate change mitigation. Despite most individuals endorsing positive environmental motivations, such as attitudes, pro-environmental behaviour uptake remains low. The thesis proposes that one's self-control ability may play a role in their pro-environmental behaviour, by enabling individuals to overcome the obstacles in the way of acting on pro-environmental motivations. This thesis thus explores the relationship between self-control and pro-environmental behaviour, and the practical implications of this relationship, by investigating how self-control strategies can be used as a marketing tool to enhance pro-environmental behaviour. The first six studies provide evidence that self-control influences pro-environmental behaviour. A consistent, positive relationship between self-control and pro-environmental behaviour is found across three correlational studies. Findings from three experiments further suggest that lower self-control is linked to reduced pro-environmental behaviour, while higher self-control is linked to higher pro-environmental behaviour. Furthermore, self-control and attitudes are shown to predict pro-environmental behaviour together. The latter five experiments address the implication that enhancing one's self-control may benefit one's pro-environmental behaviour engagement, and explore the use of implementation intentions, a strategy shown to effectively support one's self-control, for promoting pro-environmental behaviour, in a marketing context. As implementation intentions typically involve lengthy manipulations that are not suitable for wider-scale marketing use, this set of studies explores a brief, picture-based format of implementation intentions that is more suitable for marketing application. The first two experiments demonstrate that this implementation intentions format is as effective in influencing behaviour as the conventional format. Next, three field experiments demonstrate that implementation intentions, in this brief format, can effectively enhance pro-environmental behaviour. The findings contribute to a better understanding of pro-environmental behaviour, by highlighting a novel influence on pro-environmental behaviour, and identifying a new, independent predictor of pro-environmental behaviour. Furthermore, the findings provide practical insights into interventions for promoting pro-environmental behaviour and suggest an effective marketing tool that policy-makers and social marketers could use to promote pro-environmental behaviour on a wide scale.

Climate change is probably the most challenging threat to mankind. International agreements have acknowledged the fact that anthropogenic GHG emissions must be reduced significantly to adhere to a maximum global warming of 2°C. The livestock sector plays a key role in achieving this target as it is a significant source of GHG emissions. While the livestock sector offers significant GHG reduction potential, it is currently neglected in international and national mitigation efforts. Therefore, scientific research must guide mitigation policy decisions with evidence of cost-efficient abatement potential that can be achieved through various mitigation technologies. Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACC) are an analytical tool for informing policy makers about the cost-effectiveness (CE) of mitigation. MACCs provide a relatively clear representation of a complicated issue based on their graphical design that prioritises various mitigation options in terms of their CE of abatement and enables assessment of total GHG reduction under a budget constraint. However, developing a MACC involves considerable data collection, depends on various interdisciplinary information sources and the methodology is subject to several limitations. These factors can result in uncertainties in marginal abatement cost (MAC) results, the assessment of which is often neglected in MACC literature. This research shows the main GHG emission sources in livestock production and possible mitigation options to reduce GHG emissions from these sources. After elaborating the MACC methodology, advantages, disadvantages and limitation of the engineering MACC are shown. This allows understanding the relevance of assessing and reporting uncertainty of MACCs. Two engineering MACCs are developed that show the CE abatement potentials available in the Chinese livestock sector and European Union 15 (EU-15) dairy sector in 2020, with emphasis on dietary mitigation options. The requirement of assessing CE of abatement for individual mitigation options is highlighted by separate derivation of technical and economic abatement potential for the EU-15 dairy sector. For the Chinese MACC, a scenario analysis (SA) and for the European MACC, a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation are utilised to show the relevance of assessing uncertainty in MACCs. To provide further evidence, the overall range of CE estimates for eight mitigation options found in relevant MACC literature is presented. This allows the generation of probability distribution functions of CE for each mitigation option with kernel density estimation (KDE). The results from this study show the significance of livestock and dairy production related GHG emissions in China and Europe, respectively. In China, baseline GHG emissions of livestock production are projected to increase significantly, while these of the EU-15 dairy production are predicted to decrease by 2020. It was found that enteric fermentation is the largest GHG emission source from dairy production and should be focus of mitigation policies. Both case studies showed mitigation options that offer abatement potential at high CE. Priorities should be given to biomass gasification, breeding techniques and feed supplements as tea saponins and probiotics for the Chinese livestock sector, and to animal selection, reduced tillage and dietary probiotics for the EU-15 dairy sector. The scenario analysis reveals that mid-term projections for the Chinese livestock sector are varying strongly, and utilising key variables from different projections has a significant impact on MAC results which changes the ranking of the mitigation options. The MC simulation shows the contribution of some model inputs to the uncertainty of abatement at negative cost and a high model output uncertainty regarding measure’s CE for most mitigation options. However, the ranking of the mitigation options remains stable. The range of MAC estimates for 8 mitigation options in the agricultural sector is high and variables like ‘study quality’ or ‘study location’ do not change this. The KDE was further used to rank the mitigations options based on their probability of being reported as cost-negative and shows that measures affecting soil N2O and carbon sequestration are reported to be more cost-efficient as compared to measures focusing on manure management. Based on these finding, the impact of study designs on MAC estimates and lack of communication uncertainty in MACC literature are discussed. Uncertainties that are underpinning MACC results can have significant impacts on CE and abatement potentials. To increase utilisation of MACCs by knowledge users, MACC research must prioritise assessment, quantification and report of uncertainties, compare results within the scientific literature and publish data and assumption of the MACC transparently.

With the Paris Agreement calling for climate change to be held "well below" 2oC, and the release of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the international community has reaffirmed its commitment to enabling human progress within the constraints of the biosphere. In major assessments, a common approach is to examine climate and development trade-offs under a framework of economic costs, rather than human well-being, despite the latter being a potentially more accurate way to portray real development outcomes. This thesis elaborates on these links between well-being, carbon emissions and climate change mitigation; it identifies the implications of this new framework, and examines whether it is possible to achieve both low-emissions and high well-being within the limitations of society, economy and the climate. A fundamental issue is whether minimum thresholds of energy consumption necessary for satisfying human needs can be extended to all without exceeding the 2oC goal and further endangering well-being. This is found to be a key trade-off that requires either a deep commitment to emissions reductions in Northern countries, or the avoidance of carbon-intensive infrastructures in the South. Nonetheless, there are already examples of countries that have attained high levels of well-being in multiple dimensions of human need at little cumulative emissions cost, and according to current growth trends will continue to do so with a minimal impact on the shared carbon space. These nations are also diverse in terms of their underlying drivers of carbon emissions (and thus challenges in mitigation), and may provide a rich source of climate-development policy for emerging countries in the global South. However, it is understood that systematic political-economic constraints are preventing a convergence of well-being outcomes and emissions impact across the development hierarchy, highlighting the social and political (rather than technical) issues that must be addressed in order to safely transition society towards a low-carbon future.

This thesis is a critical evaluation of the theory and practice of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM). It seeks to understand why SSCM theory has so little to say about environmental sustainability and to explore how SSCM practice is contributing towards the transition towards sustainable development. I conjecture that SSCM scholars have not engaged sufficiently with the broader sustainability literature and other constructions of sustainability, which has led to a lack of theory development within SSCM. The sustainability paradigms framework that forms the core of the thesis was developed in order to broaden the discussion around sustainability within SSCM. Specifically, it embraces the contested nature of the concept of sustainability and uses multiple sustainability paradigms to construct future directions for theory development. In order to put the concept of environmental sustainability at the centre of SSCM theory, the concept of ‘environmental effectiveness’ was developed which seeks to differentiate between environmentally sustainable strategies and those that merely seek to achieve reductions in unsustainability. In order to evaluate the practice of SSCM, a case study was conducted. The concept of ‘environmental effectiveness’ is operationalized through the use of non-perceptual measures related to carbon emissions and evaluates the extent to which SSCM practices contribute towards climate stabilization, a key sustainability objective. It is found that those SSCM practices that have been shown to improve ‘environmental performance’ within the extant SSCM literature did not deliver ‘environmentally effective performance’ within the case study. This raises the possibility that the literature has mistaken reductions in unsustainability for sustainability proper and that we may need to go back to basics. The findings are discussed with reference to the sustainability paradigms framework and multiple opportunities for theory development within SSCM are explored.

Geoengineering has attracted large attention over recent years as to being a possible way to ameliorate some of the effects of climate change. One of the proposals, involving injecting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere in order to cool Earth's temperature back to pre-industrial levels, has been assessed as one of the leading geoengineering proposals. Despite this, large uncertainties remain in both the physical and social sciences. Small scale trials of sulphate aerosol injection are not seen as ways to provide large amounts of useful data to inform on the climate response to stratospheric sulphate aerosol loading (whilst also facing many social and ethical barriers). Large scale trials involving injecting amounts of aerosol more comparable to what would be required to cool the Earth's temperature back to pre-industrial levels are viewed as too risky. Assessments of the climate effects of sulphate aerosol geoengineering by the scientific community therefore have largely relied on climate modelling studies. The thesis begins by reviewing sulphate aerosol geoengineering and the modelling that have been conducted to date. In light of the need to verify modelling results with observations the thesis seeks to understand the effects of nature's analogue to sulphate aerosol geoengineering: large volcanic eruptions. When a volcano erupts it can inject large amounts of SO2 gas into the stratosphere, which then undergo conversion to form sulphate aerosol, cooling the Earth in a way analogous to sulphate aerosol engineering. The ability of the climate models submitted to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) database is assessed, with a particular focus on dynamical changes in the Northern Hemisphere winter period. These models fail to capture the observed NH dynamical response following eruptions, which is of concern for the accuracy of geoengineering modelling studies that assess the atmospheric response to sulphate aerosol geoengineering. Simulations of volcanic eruptions are then performed with high-top and low-top configurations of the HadGEM2-CC climate model. The high-top version of HadGEM2-CC, with enhanced vertical resolution and model height, gives a markedly improved and statistically significant post-volcanic winter dynamical simulation to its low-top counterpart. The post-winter dynamical simulation in the high-top model agrees with the observed response following volcanic eruptions. Accordingly, mechanisms involved in the dynamical changes are analysed and it is concluded that the HadGEM2-CC high-top model would give more confident simulations of sulphate aerosol geoengineering over its low-top counterpart. Given the identification of a more suitable model for geoengineering simulations following extensive investigation, the final chapter analyses simulations of the HadGEM2-CC high-top model for asymmetries between the climate response to an immediate onset of geoengineering and a rapid cessation of geoengineering - known as a 'termination' of geoengineering. The project is summarised and discussed, and future work is proposed, involving a large host of projects.

Climate change is a pressing problem and substantial reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions that cause it are necessary to avert the worst impacts predicted. The UK has targeted an 80% reduction from 1990 emissions levels by 2050. This thesis investigates how to promote behavioural changes that will reduce emissions associated with individuals’ lifestyles, which comprise a significant proportion of the UK total. The thesis begins by appraising whether and how climate change communications, specifically films, can succeed in changing attitudes and behaviour. The impacts on viewers of the film The Age of Stupid were assessed using a fourstage panel survey. Increased concern, motivation to act, and sense of agency felt immediately after seeing the film did not persist, but respondents reported some behavioural changes. The longer-term follow-up suggests that behavioural intentions do not necessarily translate into action, but also revealed issues concerning the reliability of participants’ causal attributions of their behaviour. These and other challenges of conducting longitudinal studies of behavioural change related to climate change communications are discussed. The thesis then uses a model of behavioural change transposed from health psychology to analyse the processes of change employed or depicted by four climate change films, in order to identify more generally the strengths and limitations of films as means to promote mitigation action, and to demonstrate the potential utility of the model in the field of proenvironmental behaviour change. The issue is then considered from the opposite angle, with an examination of what has motivated individuals who have already adopted lower-carbon lifestyles. Qualitative research reveals that protecting ‘the environment’ per se is not the primary value stimulating most interviewees’ action; typically they were more concerned about the impacts of climate change on people in developing countries. Although analysis of a survey instrument showed that biospheric values are important to the participants, they tended to score altruistic values significantly higher. Thus it may not be necessary to promote biospheric values to encourage lower-carbon lifestyles. The final element of the work involved researching the opinions of members of Carbon Rationing Action Groups, seeking to understand what can be learned from their experiences of living with a carbon allowance, and the implications that the findings may have for potential government policies, especially personal carbon trading. The thesis concludes that, given the scale of action required, the difficulties individuals face when considering whether and how to adopt lower-carbon behaviours, and the limited impact of initiatives such as Carbon Rationing Action Groups and The Age of Stupid beyond a relatively small circle of people who tend to exhibit particular traits (such as a preference for frugality), significant UK emissions reductions will necessitate far-reaching legislation that will impact on everyday practices and behaviour.

Responsible for one in eight tonnes of national CO₂ emissions, the passenger car sector is pivotal to delivering on UK climate change commitments to avoiding warming of more than 2°C. This thesis provides a clear and quantitative framing of emissions reduction at the sectoral level, by disaggregating global cumulative emissions budgets and pathways associated with a range of probabilities of exceeding 2°C. The relatively low level of abatement currently planned for the UK car sector, it is argued, needs to be significantly increased for the following reasons: (i) a scientific basis in cumulative emissions for sectoral mitigation makes carbon budgets, rather than end point targets (e.g. 2050), of the first importance; (ii) the currently high probability (63%) of exceeding 2°C underpinning the current UK carbon budgets is inconsistent with the UK government’s commitment to avoiding ‘dangerous climate change’; (iii) short-term emissions growth in industrialising countries considerably reduces remaining emissions space for industrialised countries; (iv) very limited scope exists for any large sector to cut emissions by less than the national mean rate of decarbonisation at higher rates of mitigation (around 10% p.a. by the 2020s). The consequences for emissions space in other sectors if international aviation and shipping mitigate less than the mean are quantified. For UK car sector emissions to remain consistent with a low probability of exceeding 2°C while observing these limitations, this analysis finds that planned sectoral mitigation over the coming decade needs to be increased fourfold. Means to address this expected abatement shortfall using readily available technology are investigated using a fleet emissions model to compare the effect on cumulative emissions of changes in a range of fleet parameters (including mean new car bulk emissions factors, vehicle age-proportionate annual distance travelled, and rates of fleet growth and turnover). Pushing existing car technology to the limit of expected short term efficiency gains is found to be insufficient to deliver a pathway with better than 56% probability of exceeding 2°C. Without reduction in aggregate demand for vehicle kilometres in the short term, lower probabilities of 2°C are placed beyond reach. The possibility of rapid step changes in levels of per capita car use is explored in qualitative interviews using narrative storyline scenarios. A range of coercive and voluntary interventions is considered in relation to their potential to overcome the structural and behavioural constraints to rapid transformation of personal travel.

Can rural renewable energy projects simultaneously meet the multiple goals of sustainable development, climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation? If so, under what conditions? Rural communities throughout Latin America have increasingly suffered the impacts of climate change and few policies exist to help them adapt to these impacts. The basic infrastructure and services that they frequently lack can be provided by low carbon technologies, potentially funded by international carbon finance flows that could enable the Millennium Development Goals of economic growth and poverty alleviation to be met while minimizing carbon emissions. This research will focus on this interrelationship among development, climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation policies and practices using political ecology to analyse community renewable energy projects in rural Central America. I assess fifteen community-owned renewable energy projects in Guatemala and Nicaragua to analyse whether current renewable energy projects are achieving these goals in an integrated way. The projects were established primarily as development, emissions reductions, climate change adaptation and disaster relief. The projects are evaluated on economic, development and climate change indicators that include sustainable development, poverty alleviation, emissions reductions, and climate vulnerability. I examine how the type of common property governance, local historical and environmental background and project implementation process influence the project success in meeting multiple objectives of climate adaptation, mitigation and development. Research methods include participatory poverty assessment techniques, semi-structured interviews, stakeholder analysis, and a combination of rapid and participatory methods. The analysis of sustainable development and vulnerability used the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach methodologies and emissions reductions were calculated using standard carbon reduction methodologies. The results show that, under certain conditions, renewable energy projects can simultaneously meet these three objectives, and thus that responses to climate change can be integrated with poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Small scale hydroelectric and solar systems can reduce emissions, enable adaptation and help local livelihoods although there are numerous problems that limit the success of projects including poor design, inequitable distribution of benefits, and poorly designed governance and maintenance structures.

This thesis focuses on the relationship between the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) economies and global climate change mitigation policies with a view to determining the energy exports demand security risks of OPEC member states. The successful implementation of a universally adopted climate regime has been marred with controversies as different interest groups have raised their concerns about all the options presented so far. OPEC as the major crude oil exporting group in the world has been in the forefront of these debates and negotiations. OPEC’s major concern is the envisaged adverse impacts of the industrialised countries carbon reductions on its members' economies. Several studies have shown that when industrialised countries adopt carbon dioxide emissions reduction policies in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, such as carbon taxes and energy efficiency strategies, OPEC’s net price of crude oil decreases at the same time as a reduction in the quantity of crude oil products sold. OPEC believes that such climate change policy-induced fall in crude oil exports revenues would have a significant negative effect on its members' economies. With the limitations related to the assumptions of the existing energy economy models on the impacts of climate change mitigation policies on OPEC’s economies (Barnett et al, 2004), this study opts for a risk based model. This model quantifies the energy exports demand security risks of OPEC members with special interest on crude oil. This study also investigates the effects of carbon reduction policies on crude oil prices vis-à-vis the impacts of crude oil prices on OPEC’s economies. To address these three main issues, this thesis adopts a three-prong approach. The first paper addresses the impacts of climate change mitigation on crude oil prices using a dynamic panel model. Results from the estimated dynamic panel model show that the relationship between crude oil prices and climate change mitigation is positive. The results also indicate that a 1% change in carbon intensity causes a 1.6% and 8.4% changes in crude oil prices in the short run and long run, respectively. The second paper focuses on the impacts of crude oil prices on OPEC economies using a panel vector auto regression (VAR) approach, highlighting the exposure of OPEC members to the volatile crude oil prices. The findings from the panel VAR model show that the relationship between OPEC members’ economic growth and crude oil prices is positive and economic growth in OPEC member states respond positively and significantly to a 10% deviation in crude oil prices by 1.4% in the short run and 1.7% in the long run. The third paper creates an index of the risks OPEC members face when there is a decline in the demand for their crude oil exports. To show these risks, this study develops two indexes to show the country level risks and the contributions to the OPEC-wide risks exposure. The results from the indexes show that OPEC members that are more dependent on crude oil exports are faced with more energy exports demand risks. The findings from this thesis are relevant for the development of a new OPEC energy policy that should accommodate the realities of a sustainable global climate regime. They are also useful to the respective governments of the countries that are members of OPEC and non-OPEC crude oil exporting countries. Finally, the outcomes of this thesis also contribute to the climate change and energy economics literature, especially for academic and subsequent research purposes.