Comment & Analysis
2019 saw an increase in media coverage of environmental issues and a growing sense of unease about climate change and what this could realistically mean.
Just recently, while listening to the BBC News I heard a discussion about when we would reach a tipping point for climate change, a time after which what we do will not stop climate change, this could include large-scale loss of Greenland’s ice sheet or major degradation of rainforests.
This was a discussion that I remember having at university back in the late 90s and the reality is that this point has likely passed. This doesn’t mean that what we choose to do now doesn’t make a difference, it means that through our continual industrial advancement, we have done a lot of damage. As engineers who have always sought to innovate to improve lives, we feel this both historically as well as how we take environmental and climate action today.
With all of this in mind the Institution settled on four new themes: climate change adaptation and mitigation, delivering net zero, the future of transport, and education and diversity. Our aim now is to place engineering at the forefront of these changes, a highly motivated group of engineers can change the world.
Focusing on global efforts through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to bring about a change in behaviours from business, industry, governments and individuals, this process seems to have little impact; it is hard not to be aware of the challenges facing COP26 aka The Conference of Parties (26th meeting) due to be held in Glasgow towards the end of this year. Back in February, a new COP26 President was announced in Alok Sharma MP, the new Secretary for State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. To give the Glasgow Conference of Parties any meaning Alok Sharma will have to come up with a new and better way to create international agreement and action, agreement we have seen in the past, but true action is yet to become a concerted effort.
The COP is the continued international meeting of the countries who are signed up to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This is separate to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, and also separate from the Convention on Biodiversity, the Conference on Environment and Development, born out of the Earth Summit in 1992 and the historical Conference on the Human Environment that took place back in 1972, this too addressed many of the same issues we become exercised about today. There are seven major UN Conferences on environmental and climate change issues, including COP26 this year1 , so what makes the COP special? Other UN Conferences are certainly not covered with the same vigour. I think if you asked a lot of people, not much, the impact on the ground is not something that is necessarily tangible, our agreements at Kyoto and Paris are often sited, but we have missed the targets associated with them and continue to do so. Even with recent rulings that suggest our infrastructure plans do not consider the Paris Agreement adequately, what this means long term is probably not as significant as hoped.
Over the course of the past month, I have read many suggestions of what the Glasgow COP should focus on and how it should be approached. It feels that over the last 25 years (my time as an active environmentalist) that we have lost our way. Climate change is one defining issue of our time, but so is the destruction of our environment, our lack of sustainable resources, destruction of biodiversity and forests, the pollution of every water course and ocean on the planet and improving the lives of our ever increasing global population. Yet we continue to offshore our emissions and waste and describe ourselves as ‘climate leaders’. Until we think of the whole system and listen carefully to the needs of nations still developing, we will never make the progress we seek. This year, on 4 March we saw the first International Day of Engineering for Sustainable Development; this is a much more integrated way to think of the world than through the singular lens of CO2 emissions reduction.
Another suggestion is, what do we do when we know something isn’t working, try something different? Major top down agreements are not driving change, can smaller partnerships and multi-nation consortia, bilateral, multilateral agreements, direct support between nations and leading by example drive change more rapidly than what is effectively a global voluntary agreement? Perhaps the Ayrton Fund2 could be used to deliver sustainable infrastructure collaboratively with our overseas colleagues, ensuring they are able to access the infrastructure they need. Improving quality of life and wellbeing while minimising environmental impacts.
As an engineer, I come from a naturally collaborative working environment, but I am noticing more and more tribalism of proposed futures, this is often accompanied by a lack of vision shown about the possibilities and the natural inventiveness of humans to solve problems. We must get out of own way to create success in delivering a cleaner environment with more sustainable lifestyles, not only for us, but for all nations in the supply chains that support our low carbon, resource heavy economy. As I read in an article recently on planting trees to save the planet, we all like to think a simple solution is the answer3, however we live in a complex system that requires urgent action in multiple areas and a simple solution will not work. We must not prevent environmental action that can have significant impacts because it doesn’t fit with our preferred narrative of the future of our species. To achieve any of our visions of the future we must work together. For these reasons, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers promotes collaborative working across our Professional Engineering Institutions and aims to build relationships with governments supporting engineering excellence that improves our world through engineering.