David Dunstan

David Dunstan FInstP FRSA is Professor of Experimental Physics at Queen Mary University of London. He has wide-ranging research interests, in solid-state  physics, mechanics and materials science, with outcomes ranging from  improvements in semiconductor lasers and in lighting museum exhibits, to  understanding and exploiting nanostructured metals. Recently he has been looking at the fundamental physics and the political and societal aspects of net zero. In particular, he is addressing how net zero is not the optimum way forward from a physics perspective, making the argument that we should be entirely eliminating fossil fuels from our energy supply chain, but there are societal and political barriers to this route forward. In his talk, he will explore these concepts in the context of the built environment, such as heating and cooking in the home, through to transport – including the trade-off between reducing local air pollution with zero emissions vehicles and their wider impact on the climate vs ICE vehicles.