COP21 and engineering our future

Rupert Blackstone reflects on the COP21 agreement of December 2015, and looks at the role engineers have to play in achieving its targets.

In December 2015 the Conference of Parties (COP) met in their 21st year to shore up changes in energy use and emissions practices with the aim of ensuring that global temperatures remain below 2^oC above pre-industrial levels. The agreement between 190 countries was reached at the end of the Conference and the details are as follows:

Prior to COP21 the European Union submitted a comprehensive European climate action plan (INDC) that committed the EU to a binding target of at least a 40% domestic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990, to be fulfilled jointly.

Although it is recognised that the INDCs produced by all countries are not yet enough to keep global warming below 2°C, the agreement traces the way to achieving this target.

This agreement was particularly important as in November 2015, the Met Office identified that the global temperatures had increased by 1^oC since records began. 

With the results of COP21, the identification from the UN that current EU policies will not achieve the COP21 agreement and the acknowledgement that the average global temperature has already reached 1^oC, what can engineers do to meet the demands of industry, the general public, Government as well as the challenging UN agreement? Are there realistic changes to the way we create energy, travel, manage wastes that can create the type of future we want as a society and ensure that the impact of an increasing population and digital age does not create an uninhabitable planet?

What happens in the UK may have very little impact overall, but we should use our creativity and innovation to inspire and influence other nations to a cleaner future.

The United Nations in their 2030 agenda for sustainable development – Transforming Our World has identified key focus points for achieving long term sustainability goals: people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership. Engineering has a role in each of these and can bridge the gap between the social, political and technical. It is only through engineering that we can bring about long term economic growth at the same time as minimising the impact of society on the planet.

By 2100, the global human population may reach 9.5 billion with 75% of these people located in urban settlements. Meeting the needs and demands of these people will provide significant challenges for the engineering profession in particular. However, as the future is not 100% clear, it is possible that in the future population may decline and so as engineers we need to design systems that work with varying population.

Five key areas in which population growth and expanding affluence will significantly challenge society are: food, water, urbanisation and energy.

Food: An increase in the number of mouths to feed and changes in dietary habits, including the increased consumption of meat, will double demand for agricultural production by 2050. This will place added pressures on already stretched resources coping with the uncertain impacts of climate change on global food production.

Water: Extra pressure will come not only from increased requirements for food production, which uses 70% of water consumed globally, but also from a growth in demand for drinking water and industrial processing as we strive to satisfy consumer aspirations. Worldwide demand for water is projected to rise 30% by 2030, in a world of shifting rainfall patterns due to global warming-induced climate changes that are difficult to predict.

Urbanisation: With cities in the developing world expanding at an unprecedented rate, adding another three billion urban inhabitants by 2050, solutions are needed to relieve the pressures of overcrowding, sanitation, waste handling and transportation if we are to provide comfortable, resilient and efficient places for all to live and work.

Energy: Increased food production, water processing and urbanisation, combined with economic growth and expanding affluence, will by 2050 more than double the demand on the sourcing and distribution of energy. This at a time when the sector is already under increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (on average across the globe to 50% compared to 1990 levels), adapt to uncertain future impacts of a changing climate and ensure security of future supply.

The key feature of the Paris agreement is the commitment to staying within a specified temperature rise. Participating nations must state their commitment to emissions reduction, but there is no clearly stated mechanism for relating the combined emissions reduction commitments of the participating nations to the mitigation of temperature rise. Engineers have the ability to think in terms of integrated systems and there is a real opportunity here for engineers to engage with the process by establishing practical pathways for nations, in combination, to achieve the desired result. We should therefore engage with the process and help turn an aspirational concept into a transnational plan for provision of food, water and energy through technically and economically achievable steps, establishing a clear link to the mitigation of temperature rise, working together with climate scientists.

Reference is made within the agreement to the need to apply both mitigation of climate change and also adaptation to the impacts of climate change, including recognition of the fact that already released emissions will have further impact that will need adapting to, regardless of the level of mitigation applied from now. Engineers can provide technical solutions to the unwanted climate impact we are already faced with. For future impact that is avoidable through mitigation measures yet to be implemented, engineers can introduce pragmatic solutions in balancing mitigation and adaptation. All too often long term targets are ignored, because there is no clear pathway that includes practical and economic short term steps. Engineers are in a strong position to inform the development of mechanisms that will allow technical, economic and social realisation of the long term environmental goal. We will not only have to work together within the fields of engineering and science, but we will need to cooperate extensively with, and communicate effectively with, a whole range of other fields, including economic, political and social. It will be our ability to adopt this truly multidisciplinary approach that will determine whether we reach our goals or not.

The UK provides a creative and innovative engineering base of research, development and commercialisation. Opportunities in energy production through cleaner off grid solutions, management of water outside the conventional sewage system, the creation of efficiencies in process industries and manufacture and the development of cleaner fuels and alternative power for transport are just a few areas where engineers are making a real difference. 

Engineers are ideally placed to pioneer these activities by bringing together academia, industry and governments to learn from each other and develop technological solutions that will bring meaningful change to each nation as well as reduce pollution and emissions. Ensuring that regulation and health and safety legislation is developed alongside the new technologies and infrastructure will lead to greater take up and application and minimise the risks associated with implementing new engineering systems.

The world is shrinking and activities like open innovation and the release of some companies’ patents to open source means that globally citizens can work together and support each other to transition to more sustainable lifestyles. These activities promote equality and peace through partnership.

The timeframe for delivering these technologies not just in the UK, but globally supporting developing and transitioning nations to leapfrog into a cleaner industrial revolution is shortening.  As nations grow a conventional power and transport network along with water and waste utilities the likelihood of cleaner more efficient processes becoming the incumbent technologies is diminished. There is impetus now following the Paris Agreement is to act. We have the technology, now we must create the desire to use it.

Rupert Blackstone is a Renewable Energy Engineer with over 18 years' experience in the sector. He is Managing Director of Wattcraft, a specialist renewable energy engineering consultancy. Wattcraft provides technical services towards specific technology solutions such as wind energy or towards combined sustainable energy system solutions. He is Chair of the Energy, Environment and Sustainability Group Committee at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which acts to integrate sustainable engineering practice across sectors, including energy, transport, waste and water.

The views of the writer do not necessarily represent the views of the Institution.