The 2008 Climate Change Act sets a legally binding target of 80% CO2 emissions reductions by 2050. This target will require nearly complete decarbonisation of large and medium scale emitters. While the power sector has the option of shifting to low carbon systems (renewables and nuclear), for industrial emissions, which will account for 45% of global emissions, the solution has to be based on developing more efficient processes and a viable carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure. The government recognises also that "there are some industrial processes which, by virtue of the chemical reactions required for production, will continue to emit CO2", ie CCS is the only option to tackle these emissions. In order for the UK industry to maintain its competitiveness and meet these stringent requirements new processes are needed which reduce the cost of carbon capture, typically more than 60% of the overall cost of CCS. Research challenge - The key challenges in carbon capture from industry lie in the wide range of conditions (temperature, pressure, composition) and scale of the processes encountered in industrial applications. For carbon capture from industrial sources the drivers and mechanisms to achieve emissions reductions will be very different from those of the power generation industry. It is important to consider that for example the food and drinks industry is striving to reduce the carbon footprint of the products we purchase due to pressures from consumers. The practical challenge and the real long term opportunity for R&D are solutions for medium to small scale sources. In developing this project we have collaborated with several industrial colleagues to identify a broad range case studies to be investigated. As an example of low CO2 concentration systems we have identified a medium sized industry: Lotte Chemicals in Redcar, manufacturer of PET products primarily for the packaging of food and drinks. The plant has gas fired generators that produce 3500 kg/hr of CO2 each at approximately 7%. The emissions from the generators are equivalent to 1/50th of a 500 MW gas fired power plant. The challenge is to intensify the efficiency of the carbon capture units by reducing cycle times and increasing the working capacity of the adsorbents. To tackle this challenge we will develop novel amine supporting porous carbons housed in a rotary wheel adsorber. To maximise the volume available for the adsorbent we will consider direct electrical heating, thus eliminating the need for heat transfer surfaces and introducing added flexibility in case steam is not available on site. As an example of high CO2 concentrations we will collaborate with Air Products. The CO2 capture process will be designed around the steam methane reformer used to generate hydrogen. The tail gas from this system contains 45% v/v CO2. The base case will be for a generator housed in a shipping container. By developing a corresponding carbon capture module this can lead to a system that can produce clean H2 from natural gas or shale gas, providing a flexible low carbon source of H2 or fuel for industrial applications. Rapid cycle adsorption based processes will be developed to drive down costs by arriving flexible systems with small footprints for a range of applications and that can lead to mass-production of modular units. We will carry out an ambitious programme of work that will address both materials and process development for carbon capture from industrial sources.

Climate change is arguably the biggest challenge facing people this century, and changes to the intensity and frequency of climatic and hydrologic extremes will have large impacts on our communities. We use climate models to tell us about what weather in the future will be like and these computer models are based on fundamental physical laws and complicated mathematical equations which necessarily simplify real processes. One of the simplifications that really seems to matter is that of deep convection (imagine the type of processes that cause a thunderstorm). However, computers are so powerful now that we are able to produce models that work on smaller and smaller scales, and recently we have developed models which we call "convection-permitting" where we stop using these simplifications of deep convection. These "convection-permitting" models are not necessarily better at simulating mean rainfall or rainfall occurrence but they are much better at simulating heavy rainfall over short time periods (less than one day) which cause flooding, in particular flash-flood events. They are also better at simulating the increase in heavy rainfall with temperature rise that we can observe; therefore we are more confident in their projections of changes in heavy rainfall for the future. A few "convection-permitting" modelling experiments have now been run for different parts of the world but all of these have been over small regions, only the same size as the UK, or smaller. All of the experiments so far have concentrated on rainfall and none have examined how "convection-permitting" models might improve the simulation of other types of extreme weather such as hail, lightning or windstorms. In fact we know very little about how these types of extremes might change in the future. We also have no idea of the uncertainty in our experiments in terms of our predictions of future changes as we have only run one model simulation in each region - this is not useful for planning climate adaptation strategies where we really need to understand the uncertainties in our future predictions so we can plan for them. In FUTURE-STORMS we are running these "convection-permitting" models over a very large area (the whole of Europe) and we are comparing models from two different climate modelling teams at the UK Met Office and ETH Zurich in Switzerland. In addition to this we are now able to run a number of different climate models over the same region, which allows us to assess some of the uncertainties in future changes to heavy rainfall and other storm-related extreme weather. This will let us explore how heavy rainfall might change across Europe and what might be causing this. It will also allow us to look at whether these new models are able to simulate other types of extreme weather like hail, lightning and windstorms which have a huge impact on Europe, and how these might change in the future. Ultimately, we need better information on how extreme weather events might change in the future on which to make adaptation decisions and FUTURE-STORMS intends to provide this important advance, alongside translating this information into useful tools and metrics for use in climate change adaptation.

Historical disposal of wastes from domestic and industrial sources often took place with little regard for potential environmental impacts. Wastes were often deposited in landfills that can release potential pollutants to the surrounding environment. Such 'legacy landfill' sites are a particular concern in coastal areas where they are likely to be affected by increased flooding, greater erosion and more extreme cycles of wetting and drying as our climate changes. Managing such environmental issues is of critical importance, but currently we do not have a systematic framework by which we assess and understand the nature of the risks posed by different waste types in coastal areas. Given the UK's rich industrial past, there are a wide range of legacy wastes deposited in estuarine and coastal settings such as municipal waste, mine wastes, steel industry by-products, metal-rich wastes from smelting and chemical process wastes. This proposal brings together a team of researchers specialising in assessing the environmental risks of legacy wastes to (1) provide a national assessment of the environmental risks associated with legacy landfills in the coastal zone, and (2) provide a framework for effective management of these risks now and in the future. The first part of the project will bring together various national databases (e.g. on location of landfills, mining waste, coastal erosion rates, coastal management plans) to provide a single map-based database of legacy landfills within the coastal zone. We will then liaise with regional specialists in government agencies and academia to collate detail on documented risks and identify high risk priority sites (e.g. those with the greatest contamination risk and / or those most affected by erosion or flooding). This will allow us to produce an overview of the different types of waste in coastal landfills, assess the broad risks posed by them (e.g. pollutant release, physical erosion etc.) and consider potential options for resource recovery from these sites (e.g. scrap metals that could be recycled). The second component of the project will improve our understanding of the environmental behaviour of different waste types in coastal settings. Most risk assessments for wastes are undertaken assuming they will be in contact with freshwater (e.g. leaching tests that simulate wastes in contact with rainfall). We will provide a significant advance on assessing environmental risks in coastal settings by testing how pollutants are released from different waste types (e.g. municipal waste, mine waste, processing wastes) under a range of environmental conditions. These conditions will simulate the current and future environmental scenarios in coastal areas such as variations in salinity and extremes of wetting and drying that are anticipated with climate change. Crucially, we will undertake experiments that test how these wastes behave across a range of experimental scales (e.g. from beaker sized experiments, through skip-sized experiments, to measurements at real sites). This is important to have confidence that small scale laboratory experiments give us information on how pollutants are released from waste that matches with data from real field sites. Such information is crucial for extending the risk assessments completed in part one of the project. Effective long term management of legacy wastes relies on many different agencies working together (e.g. councils, regulators, land owners, engineers). The final part of the project will therefore bring various stakeholders together in different parts of the UK to (1) evaluate approaches to remediation, and (2) consider management priorities put forward by the early stages of the project. A series workshops will take place in the different administrations of the UK to produce a national management framework for legacy wastes in the coastal zone.

The 'DecomRegHub' will provide a safe, collaborative environment where industry can engage with regulators and together explore the technical and regulatory requirements of decommissioning and share/manage the associated risks. It will facilitate early engagement between industry, key stakeholders and regulators to explore collaboratively the technical, environmental and safety requirements of decommissioning, as well as identify opportunities to develop and test new techniques, products and regulatory tools that will help ensure the success of the global decommissioning market. 'DecomRegHub' will also provide a customer-focused digital hub bringing together data, advice, guidance, information, best practice, and case studies across the entire regulatory landscape. This collaborative approach will enable knowledge sharing and access to robust evidence, drawn from multiple sources of information that, in turn, will inform policy and regulatory development, operational assessments and decisions. The digital hub will be designed with users to ensure it contains the right information in the right format and is structured to make it easy for users to find and use what they are looking for as easily as possible. The ''DecomRegHub'' is made up of UK regulators and will be supported by the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning (OPRED), the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Environment Agency (EA), the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS). It will: • Provide a safe, collaborative environment that supports industry in the development and testing of innovative new techniques, products and services in support of decommissioning. • Bring together operating companies and multiple regulators (from the oil and gas industry and the waste supply chain). • Understand (holistically) the environmental and safety regulatory requirements and identify opportunities to manage the associated risks together. • Address cross-cutting areas, share best practices and create innovative solutions. • Drive the potential to reduce, re-use and recycle materials, moving towards a circular economy. • Develop knowledge and experience that will grow the industry. • Position the UK as a global leader in late-life oil and gas asset management and decommissioning.

Describing changes in the natural environment is essential, but in addition the challenge facing regulators and policy makers lies in understanding the links between policy, EU directives and regulation and the actual environmental effects . In 2001, the European Environment Agency reported on 'how much or how little we know about the links between environmental policy measures and their actual impact in the environment' and observed that 'much of the information gathered is of limited use in assessing the impact of environmental measures' (Nigel Haigh, foreword of Environmental Issues, Report 25/EC). Quantifying change, whether as a result of policy and regulation or through climate related change is 'complex and requires multi-disciplinary efforts, including assessment of changes in environmental quality that have been observed'. Some of the most high-profile environmental science issues of today are framed around the analysis of long (and short) observational records, measured over a network of locations and recognising patterns requires statistical modelling, to account for variation in the natural system, incomplete observations and uncertainty. Additionally, policy makers and regulators are being asked to consider planning and regulation under the scenario of climate change (eg frequency of flood events, effect on water quality) thus risk assessment becomes a key driver of regulation, with resources directed according to the risks involved and the scale of outcomes to be achieved. Environment agencies and other NGO's regularly publish 'State of the environment reports' which by their nature allow investigation of change in the environment over time. Scientific and public debates on these issues need to be informed by presentation of existing data along with suitable interpretations drawn from statistical modelling explicitly accounting for variation and uncertainty. Many factors, including climate change, interact to produce a complex environmental signal making the effect of the policy and the magnitude of trend difficult to disentangle. The proposal brings together environmental regulators, managers, civil servants and scientists to develop the skills necessary to ensure that our environment receives the best possible management for future generations.