Here is information about the events in our 2023-24 Programme:
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Tuesday October 3rd 2023: ‘The challenge of decoupling energy use from GDP: recent findings and implications for meeting the Paris Agreement targets’. A talk by Dr Paul Brockway, from the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds.
Summary
To meet our Paris / climate change targets, energy models assume a key role for energy efficiency to reduce energy use, in combination with a huge deployment of renewables. But is this blind faith in energy efficiency merited? I examine historical global trends, and find there has been no global historical absolute energy-GDP decoupling, and yet this is a key assumption in the models. So, what is causing the disconnect between past and future assumed energy-GDP trends? I explore the evidence for large economy-wide rebound as a plausible explanation, and find compelling support for this hypothesis. It also confirms an underrecognised role for energy efficiency in enabling economic growth. So what can we do? I close by considering what we can do in response, covering modelling and policy actions.
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About Paul Brockway
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Dr Paul Brockway is an Associate Professor in Energy and Economics at the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, UK. He has a 5 year research fellowship on the topic ‘Applying thermodynamic laws to the energy-GDP decoupling problem’, where he applies an Exergy Economics approach to study thermodynamic energy conversion within energy-economy modelling frameworks.
Tuesday November 7th 2023: ‘“A Local GP and his experience of the NHS”, Dr Matt. Barton, GP Partner in Bramley.’
The powerpoint slides of Dr Barton's talks is available here.
Summary
Matt will discuss (among other things) the state of the nation's health, the importance of Primary vs Secondary care, future positive change for the NHS.
About Dr Matt Barton
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I am GP Partner in Bramley, West Leeds and have been working there for the last 10 years. I grew up in Lancashire from a family of police officers, teachers and farmers; and went to school in Blackpool. I initially read Chemistry at University of Sheffield which involved a year working for Ineos in Cheshire. I then moved to Leeds to read medicine in 2003 and have lived here ever since. I initially was training in Orthopaedics before realising I preferred a more general career and moved into General practice. I specialise in holistic medicine, Safeguarding and General practice training. Out of work I have 2 young children who are schooled in Headingley, we enjoy camping in the UK, I am a member of Hyde Park Harriers and currently training to be a run leader.
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Tuesday December 5th 2023: Why don’t trains run on time? Why are fares so expensive? Why are there so many strikes? A talk by Dr Tom Haines-Doran, Leeds University Business School.
Summary
Few would disagree that Britain’s railways are broken, and have been for a long time.In his talk, Dr Haines calls for a radical rethink of how we view the railways, and explains the problems we face and how to fix them. This is based on his recent book ‘ Derailed: How to fix Britain’s Broken Railways’. Haines-Doran argues that the railways should be seen as a social good and an indispensable feature of the national economy. With passengers and railway workers holding governments to account, we could then move past the incessant debates on whether our railways are an unavoidably loss-making business failure. An alternative vision is both possible and affordable, enabling the railways to play an instrumental role in decreasing social inequalities, strengthening the economy and supporting a transition to a sustainable future.
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Tom Haines-Doran is a West Yorkshire Policy Fellow at the Leeds University Business School. He is political economist specialising in transport systems, infrastructure and social movements. He currently works at the University of Leeds, leading research on transport decarbonisation. He previously worked as a researcher for the Urban Transport Group, authoring research documents for high-level decision makers in local and national government.
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Tuesday January 9th 2024: Councillor Mohammed Rafique, 'Leeds City Council's Waste Strategy.
The talk will focus on the Council’s approach to waste management in our city – including the push to reduce, reuse and recycle, and our tough stance on fly tipping and the work of new Serious Environmental Crime Team.
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About Councillor Mohammed Rafique:
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Councillor Mohammed Rafique has been a Labour Councillor for Chapel Allerton since 2004, and a member of Executive Board since 2015. Prior to his election, he previously worked for the council as an officer within Education Leeds.
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During this time, he has held several portfolio’s including Skills and Post-16 Education, Environment and Active lifestyles, Housing and his current Climate, Energy, Environment and Green Spaces portfolio. Councillor Rafique has also held other positions such as, Community Committee Chair, Plans Panel Chair and Scrutiny Chair.
Outside of his council responsibilities Councillor Rafique is on the board of governors at Chapel Allerton primary school, and he is a Trustee of the Wades Charity. He also has keen interest in recycling, improving the environment and raising educational standards.
Tuesday February 6th 2024: Emeritus Professor Malcolm Sawyer, 'Economic Stagnation in the UK: causes and consequences. The powerpoint slides from Malcolm's talk are available here.
Summary
The talk begins by a brief review of recent UK growth (of GDP) experience, making comparisons with other countries and with previous periods. Many factors have fed into the near stagnation of recent years, often impacting on many countries. These include policies of austerity and rising inequality. The quantity and quality of investment and the focus of research and development (which may be ascribed to ‘pursuit of shareholder value’), the dominance of the financial sector (‘financialisation’), rewards based on power and not on contribution (‘rentierism’), and monopolisation. Climate change has also impacted on productivity growth. A brief examination of each of these follows and it is argued that each of these factors have played a role. Further, the slow growth of GDP has not been associated with moves to a low carbon environmentally sustainable economy. The requirements for the future are not so much for faster growth of GDP, but rather policies which promote development of economic and social well-being within planetary boundaries.
About Malcolm Sawyer
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Malcolm Sawyer is Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Leeds previously Professor of Economics, University of Leeds, and University of York. In ‘retirement’, he continues to pursue economic research on a range of topics including fiscal policies and alternatives to austerity, policies for full employment, financialisation, ecological macroeconomics, economics of stagnation and monetary policy. He was the lead co-ordinator for the EU funded 8 million euro, 15 partner, five year project on Financialisation Economy Society and Sustainable Development (www.fessud.eu). He has authored 13 books including Can the Euro Survive?, Polity Press, and most recently Financialization: Economic and Social Impacts Agenda. He was managing editor of International Review of Applied Economics for over 30 years. He has edited or co-edited over 30 books. He has published over 140 papers in refereed journals and contributed over 160 book chapters on a wide range of topics.
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March 5th 2024: Alexis Percival, 'A talk about the Roundhay Environmental Action Project (REAP).
Summary
Roundhay Environmental Action Project was set up to address the rising worries of local residents hoping to tackle climate change on their doorstep. Over the past 17 years a range of exciting projects have been rolled out for communities to get engaged in the climate agenda and take action. Projects have included transport projects, from green technology and gardens open days to community gardens, tree planting and community orchards, EV charging point and bike rack installation, rewilding spaces and energy education. REAP has also hosted the wonderful Roundhay Live and Tour de Roundhay all supported by the fabulous Oakwood Farmers’ Market.
About Alexis Percival
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Alexis Percival is a Trustee of REAP. In her day job she is the Environmental and Sustainability Manager for the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, a post she has held since 2009. Her challenging role involves reducing the carbon footprint of the blue light ambulance service through innovative technologies in the estates, fleet and procurement departments. She set up the GrEAN (Green Environmental Ambulance Network) in 2010 connecting all of the sustainability leads across the ambulance services of the UK to drive forwards the Net Zero agenda.
Alexis has over 25 years of experience in the environmental field as a Consultant working on large international and national projects in the UK, Brazil, Germany, Mozambique and Australia. She took a career break and spent three years driving around the world in an ex-military ambulance, travelling overland to Australia and then around South America.
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Tuesday April 9th 2024: The growing movement of Community Wealth Building’. A Talk by Matthew Brown, Leader of Preston Council.
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A term barely unheard of a decade ago many areas in the UK are looking to Community Wealth Building to challenge systemic failures of conventional economic development which has led to rising inequality, economic stagnation, and environmental crisis.
The well-known ‘Preston Model’ is one example of how to develop a more democratic economy in place using various levers and strategies to ensure there is more ownership and control within communities. This is accompanied by a growth of Community Wealth Building policies in many areas of the UK alongside significant international advancement. Matthew Brown from The Democracy Collaborative who is also Leader of Preston City Council will give a talk about the exciting trends to genuinely take back control by promoting strategies that put wealth in a wider number of hands and democratise capital at source.
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About Councillor Brown
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Councillor Matthew Brown is Leader of Preston City Council in the north of England, where he has been widely credited as the driving force behind the ‘Preston model’, an economic strategy at the city and county level that presents a comprehensive, interlinked approach to community wealth building as a practical and transformative alternative to austerity and disinvestment. First elected to represent the Tulketh ward in 2002, Councillor Matthew Brown subsequently took on portfolios that included community engagement and inclusion, social justice and policy initiatives, leading to his election in 2018 as Council Leader.
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Tuesday May 7th 2024: 'Framing, Financing and Delivering a Green Basic Income’. Dr Reinhard Huss.
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Reinhard's talk is available here.
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Reinhard will discuss the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) definition of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and some important gaps in the definition. The opposition against UBI is often focused on the issues of costs, affordability and feasibility. However, what matters in the end is the public demand and the political will to introduce UBI as a societal institution to offer everybody a secure social foundation. He will explain that UBI can support the socio-ecological transformation from an industrial extract-produce—consume-waste economy to a grand-children-friendly circular economy. We need to change our attitudes about UBI from ‘free money’ to a ‘right to subsistence’ and about our Commons from ‘free for all’ to our ‘collective inherited wealth’. The actual free-riding of our Commons (Air, Water, Soil, others) will be replaced by fees for their use. These fees will finance UBI and essential services. UBI delivery will be the responsibility of several Commons Trust Funds rather than the State.
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About Dr Huss
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Reinhard Huss studied medicine in Bonn and Nottingham and worked in the NHS as a clinical doctor and researcher for four years including two in Leeds. He worked for five years in Zimbabwe as a clinical medical officer and for seven years in the Central African Republic as public health (PH) advisor. Afterwards he became a PH advisor for German Technical Cooperation and later taught at the University of Heidelberg with various PH assignments in Africa, Asia and Europe. Before his retirement in 2019 he was the programme leader for the Master of International PH at the Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development at the University of Leeds. In 1991 Reinhard became interested in Universal Basic Income (UBI) when he wrote his public health master thesis at the University of Leeds on the topic of ‘Economic Justice for Sustainable Health’. The thesis explored the concept of time autonomy as an important factor of personal health. Moreover we require UBI as a societal institution to give practical meaning to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25 ‘Right to Adequate Standard of Living’. Reinhard is coordinator of UBI Lab Leeds, member of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE).
In case you would like an introduction to Basic Income before our session, you may want to listen to the poem of Jose Cordon ‘Living in America’ at https://twitter.com/mayorsforagi/status/1724513827562098919?s=46&t=toG3x4cuZV5aKBTBRiBq9A or read the Morning Star article ‘After AI: time to embrace universal basic income’
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Tuesday June 4th 2024: 'Born In Bradford – research that changes a city’. Dr Dan Lewer, Consultant in Public Health, head of the Bradford Centre for Health Data Science.
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Summary
Born In Bradford is one of the biggest health research projects in the world. Between 2007 and 2011, we recruited over 12,000 families during pregnancy. We’ve done detailed surveys and collected biological samples. We’ve also started ambitious projects to learn from data collected routinely by the NHS. There is a vast scientific output from these endeavours. But more fundamentally, we’re trying to work out how research can be embedded in a city and improve the health and wellbeing of its residents. Dan will talk about Born In Bradford and its trials, tribulations, and totemic achievements.
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Biographical Details
Dan is a public health specialist and epidemiologist. He is a quantitative researcher who analyses observational data (ie. data collected about the ‘real world’ rather than as part of an experiment). He focuses on mental health (particularly for young people), the way the healthcare system treats people with stigmatising conditions such as drug and alcohol dependence, and social exclusion. Dan is a Consultant in Public Health, head of the Bradford Centre for Health Data Science, and Associate Professor of public health and epidemiology at University College London.
