The Institution is committed to raising awareness about the role engineering can play to help deal with some of the biggest challenges facing mankind, including climate change.
Consequently, ahead of the United Nations Climate Change talks in Paris, it commissioned a survey of 2,000 members of the public to gauge public opinion on the talks and climate change more generally.
The survey, carried out by ICM Unlimited, found that the majority of the UK public (67%), was unaware that the talks were even taking place and that just 19% were confident that an agreement on climate change can be reached. The two biggest barriers to reaching a solution to climate change, according to the results, were the increased industrialisation of poorer countries (20%) and lack of political will (19%). Lack of public concern about climate change also scored highly with 11% and international conflicts were cited by 10% as being the biggest barrier.
Dr Jenifer Baxter, the Institution's Head of Energy and Environment, said in response to the findings: “These results from a survey are troubling and the low levels of awareness illustrate how disengaged the public is with political attempts to combat climate change.
"Leaders must show ambition to provide the political framework to make tackling climate change a priority. It is only with this clear vision that engineers and scientists can truly push through with the research, development and deployment of technologies that can mitigate climate change and allow us to adapt to a world that is already facing huge changes.”
The survey's findings were picked up in a number of trade and regional news publications.
In addition to the public survey, the Institution also launched the Catchment Management in the Water Industry policy statement to coincide with the UN talks. This policy statement calls for the urgent review of European Union (EU) water legislation, which includes unreasonable waste water quality demands which are driving up energy and chemical use as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the policy statement, while the EU Water Framework Directive has improved natural water quality, particularly in UK rivers, this has only been achieved through energy and chemical intensive treatments which are hugely damaging to the environment.
The policy statement finds that current legislation is overly stringent and improvements in UK water quality have only been achieved through the construction of high energy intensive treatment processes at sewage treatment works necessary to meet the tightened effluent consent levels.
This is costing UK water companies up to £9 million a year on electricity to run 300 blowers for activated sludge plants. Industry estimates suggest that 1% of all of the UK’s electricity is consumed by compressors used for the aeration of wastewater at the nation’s sewage treatment works and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from the operational side of the water industry are approximately 0.7% of the total UK emissions.