Comparing Territorial and Consumption Based data

[McHeath]

Basingstoke and Deane Emissions.xlsx

This is a followup to Phil's excellent analysis of Winchesters total emissions.

Also attached is a spreadsheet the shows how territorial data Basingstoke and Deane can be partially reconciled with consumption data.

A “reconciliation” of the two is given below. All in tonnes CO2e

It is fascinating comparing the two and raises some interesting questions:

1. Clearly Basingstoke is a net importer of goods and services emissions, that is to be expected. The 281,674 tonnes are the emissions the district generates to produce goods and services; the 453,391 are the emissions is generates through consumption.

2. Housing is a 1-to-1 mapping.

3. There is a clear difference in transport emissions. This could be due to the M3 and the A34 (major trunk routes) going through the district but is surprising that the difference is so big.

4. Power generation is probably from the local energy from waste (EfW) plant, 2 AD plants and a sewage gas plant. The DUKES statistics says Basingstoke produces about 107GWh of electricity from these sources so that number (6,086 tonnes) seems a little on the low side.

5. It is interesting that the district seems to be a net importer of waste related emissions. There is the EfW incinerator which takes in waste from across a number of districts, would that account for the difference?

6. No surprises the district is a net importer of food related emissions. But it shows how important behaviour and diet change is going to be.

7. How does consumption based data account for land use and land use changes? Does the zero amount imply that consumption in Basingstoke has no net impact on land use outside the district?

8. I would have thought that consumption based emissions in total would have been larger than territorial emissions

It is also fascinating to think how a district would respond to a climate emergency if it based its decisions on one set of data or the other. If territorial emissions where used to set a strategy a district (or county) would be drawn to focus on transport and housing. However looking at the consumption data would focus actions on consumption of goods /services, food and buildings. The use of the wrong data is very likely to lead to sub-optimal decisions. For example there is little point on a district focusing on transport if most of these emissions are caused by people from outside the district. It would be far better for that district to look at reducing consumption, changing diets, installing renewables and insulating buildings.

All the best

Martin

[PhilGagg]

20210310 Winchester District Emissions 2018.xlsx

Just for the record, I attach the Winchester data.

I agree with Ben that we need to be careful not to get distracted by the CSE data and that it’s not currently clear how it aligns with the HCC/Carbon Trust data.

Before we have a discussion on what we should start on, though, it would be good to know what the Carbon Trust data is, and understand the CSE data a bit more. Despite its limits, the BEIS data feels more solid. I have seen only indirect references to the Carbon Trust data, and they do not seem to offer consistency or sufficient detail. Hopefully somebody has seen everything and can deposit a full copy on this site. Meanwhile it seems important to me to explore what the CSE data actually is, and form a view about how reliable and useful it is from a position of knowledge. It would be good to have a clear view of the differences between CO2, CO2e and consumption emissions in Hampshire and work out what that would mean in terms of priorities for action. At least CSE tries to cover two of these angles.

The CSE methodology offers some information about how they constructed their data, but leaves a lot out. Only by comparing LULUCF data with BEIS tables do we even know that it currently refers to 2018, despite the superseded references in the glossary. The inclusion of CO2e and consumer data tempts me to want to know more. In principle the parish-by-parish granularity is a strong feature, but the data showing for parishes in Winchester District is decidedly odd. I have a particular interest in working on it because they are contracted to work in Winchester District. Both Hampshire and Winchester have said they want to work at parish level and the tool is superficially tempting. I imagine Terena will want to use it too. I would like to find out if its data is meaningful. So far the strongest feature seems to be the integration of emissions from Housing consumption of gas, electricity, oil and LPG.

The starting point for my worry is akin to Martin's last point. If ONS have identified an emissions import surplus, and Leeds University consumption data show about half consumption emissions coming from abroad depending on the table you are looking at, I would have expected consumption emissions to total at least 85% more than territorial emissions.

I would also like to be clearer about the benefits of communicating on GitHub. Which tools might we want to use and for what? My browser is full of now-disused shared discussion sites, and I would like to think we will all actually manage to use this one.

[dataknut]

I assume the Carbon Trust data underpins the current strategy document. It was presented at the workshop last August but yes, not in sufficient detail (IMHO).

Hopefully Joe (HCC) can provide the Carbon Trust data but we'd have to keep it in the privateDate repository as I don't think it can be made public, unlike the CES/BEIS etc data