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Citizens' juries provide arena for balanced decision making

A unique research project, the most comprehensive of its kind and a world first, has concluded that citizens' juries can provide an ideal space for deciding on difficult issues.

During the research three groups of people (citizens’ juries) were asked to come up with criteria for decision making about onshore wind farms in Scotland. Despite the diversity of views in the groups, all three juries managed to develop and agree a list of principles.

Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment, Marco Biagi MSP said the project was a valuable contribution in the efforts to boost participation in local democracy and improve community engagement.
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Life cycle cost and carbon emissions from wind power

Our researchers have looked at the range of academic estimates of the life cycle costs and emissions of wind energy, and the evidence on which these estimates are based.

To meet government objectives, wind energy must provide an energy supply that is less carbon intensive over its lifetime than the technologies it displaces.
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Project kick off

This month we kicked off a research project to assess how national land-use planning policies on flood risk are implemented by local planning authorities. This will help policymakers to understand the extent to which decisions on the location and design of new developments are consistent with national planning policy and advice from relevant Scottish agencies.

The research will feed into the CXC’s Adaptation Indicators, which will inform the independent assessment of the Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme (SCCAP) by the UK Committee on Climate Change’s Adaptation Sub Committee (ASC). The research will be undertaken by Land Use Consultants with input from the ASC, SEPA and Scotland's Centre of Expertise for Waters (CREW).
Read more about our adaptation indicator work
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UKERC Technology and Policy Assessment Topic Consultation
CXC and UKERC Workshop
9 June, Edinburgh
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How can Scotland make the most of its energy efficiency policy?
CXC event
23 June, Glasgow
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Designing City Resilience
16-17 June, London
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The role of values in transformational change
25 June, Edinburgh
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Community Energy 2015: Building Partnerships & Delivering Successful Projects
8 July, London
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World Symposium on Climate Change Adaptation 2015
2-4 September, Manchester
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FCERM Green Infrastructure Forum 2015
6-7 October, Glasgow
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Old Building Energy - Efficiency Research Seminar
3 November, Stirling
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World Forum on Natural Capital 2015
23-24 November, Edinburgh
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Keep up to date with events from ECCI and Sniffer

Jen Roberts wins Scottish Energy Researcher of the Year Award

As she was finalising our report on the Citizens' Juries, Dr Jen Roberts was also awarded the Energy Infrastructure and Society category of the inaugural 2015 Heriot Watt Scottish Energy Researcher of the Year Awards.

She won the prize for her interdisciplinary work on the social and environmental risk associated with energy systems.
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Darcy Pimblett seconded to Scottish Government Resilience Division

ClimateXChange Information Officer Darcy Pimblett has started a one-day-per-week secondment to take forward the development work on the National Centre for Resilience (NCR) over the next year.

There are a number of close parallels between the work of the NCR and Darcy's existing work in CXC on developing and supporting the statutory UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, which is due in mid 2016.
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Read our Energy and Climate Change Policy and Research summary for May
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Overview of climate change adaptation platforms in Europe
This report by the European Environment Agency provides an overview on the state of play of most adaptation platform in Europe including 14 national adaptation platforms. It offers information on the scope, history, targeted users, the selection and presentation of knowledge, the links to other topics, scales and platforms as well as the monitoring and evaluation of the platforms.

It also analyses existing and potential links of the platforms to climate services and Disaster risk reduction (DRR) platforms.
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Climate change adaptation in West Africa Facilitating conversation to break down barriers
In the semi-arid Sahel of West Africa, already-vulnerable communities are facing longer annual droughts and more erratic weather patterns. Since 2011, a team of CIFOR scientists have been investigating how forests and tree resources can help these communities cope and adapt to climate change and variability.
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Keep up to date with the latest discussions in the Scottish Parliament's Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee on
Parliament TV