What does it take to meet the UK’s projected energy demands in 2050?  How can this be done at the same time as decarbonising our energy supply by 80%? What are the consequences for fuel bills, land use and food supplies?  This highly interactive session puts the audience and panellists Philip Pullman, Tom Heap and Natalie Haynes in the policy hot seat as they decide the parameters of both the supply and demand of our energy future, using the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s 2050 Calculator. Chaired by Mark Lynas with expert advice from David MacKay.

Pullman is the author of the multi-award-winning trilogy His Dark Materials. Heap is rural affairs correspondent for the BBC and presenter of Countryfile and Costing the Earth. Haynes is author of The Amber Fury and a broadcaster, classicist and former stand-up comic. Lynas is an environmentalist and author of The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans.  MacKay is Regius Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, former chief scientific advisor to DECC and author of Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air.

Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars.