The second part of my diary of week two of COP26.
Now feeling I know my way around, and a fresh Covid-free text message at the ready, I time my arrival to avoid the worst of the airport-style security queues.
Somehow the people of Glasgow are going about their normal business amidst all this, the vast majority of them with good cheer.
A number of international visitors have commented on how friendly they have found Glasgow to be, and I’ve seen several looking with great curiosity at the Irn Bru (“the not so soft drink”) dominating displays at the catering outlets.
The marketing of Scottish fare is further enhanced by the Tunnock’s Tea Cakes handed to those in the queue.
Wednesday, 10 November – Transport Day
Today was all about Transport.
I attended an event on sustainable aviation fuels and a linked series of official side meetings on transport decarbonisation.
In a session organised by the World Economic Forum on the international aviation community’s growth commitment to the major challenge of 10% Synthetic Aviation Fuel (SAF) globally by 2030. Achieving this target requires a completely new industry to develop to produce the fuel, something like 300 production plants and $250bn of investment.
The panel included the CEOs of Rolls Royce, United Airways and Cathay Pacific, and very senior people from DHL, fuel producers, Boeing and others.
I was struck by the “getting down to business” tone of the event. For example, DHL has committed $60m to SAF fuel purchase at its East Midlands hub in the UK for 2021/22. United is already committed to 2% SAF and is investing in achieving the 10% target. Rolls Royce was clear that its engines would all be modified as needed and certified for 100% SAF compatibility by 2023.
The takeaway, in line with day one: consumer awareness is driving businesses to act.
Biomass is an important feedstock for making some of the SAF needed, which democratises fuel sourcing, allowing most countries to create domestic industries, with associated employment and avoided imports.
In the longer term, there is promise in making SAF from combining carbon dioxide captured from the air with green hydrogen, either through chemical or biological processes.
The first pilot plant is in development now, at Rotterdam Airport. Costs today are much higher than conventional kerosene but focus on achieving 10% SAF by 2030 will drive the scale to reduce costs.
In the developed world we’re seeing encouraging progress and some real commitments on transport decarbonisation. This feels like a real shift, the discussion has moved beyond what needs to change, and even how it needs to change, to how pace can be delivered. The value of partnerships reaching across sectors and value chains is continually emphasised – in e-mobility for example the availability of power where needed matters as much as vehicle sales.
However the same seems far less true in lower- and middle-income countries. The focus as yet is on point solutions such as electric buses, and on the often strikingly innovative work of private companies.
Discussions about the wider provision of charging infrastructure, or about the enormous challenges of addressing large additional electrical demands to fragile distribution networks and national power systems often operated “on the edge” were absent. This was also true in richer nations some years ago and yet the lesson does not seem to have transferred and this seems a serious worry.
There were also some interesting perspectives around workers in transportation industries, of which there are 13 million worldwide. They are on the front line and are part of the transition.
During the pandemic, large numbers of them were failed – with disproportionate levels of fatality, and wholly unacceptable situations such as seafarers, mostly from the global South, being trapped on ships for up to 18 months because there was no way to repatriate them.
Today we heard pleas to treat workers as key assets, not problems, in the transition – also to be thoughtful and positive in developing their skills, and to bring them into the conversation early and to learn from them, rather than impose the change on them.
This message came out repeatedly during the COP, involve rather than impose.
Thursday, 11 November: Cities, regions and Built Environment Day
This was cities, regions and built environment day.
Two-thirds of carbon dioxide emissions happen in cities.
What came across to me was that so often, cities are succeeding to create change without a cohesive and supportive policy framework from higher layers of government. We urgently need to think through the powers cities need to have, the accountabilities they can take and the resources they need to achieve their full decarbonisation potential; and how that relates to national and other efforts.
In other words, systems thinking – something the engineering profession does naturally and has been advocating strongly.
The ideas of a just transition were prominent in this debate; in Glasgow for example there are many people more concerned with feeding their families than driving an electric car. Anything we technologists do will only succeed if real people are able to embrace it.
It was interesting also to hear the Welsh Commissioner for Future Generations speak about the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, which has been in force for some time now.
This is legislation that binds the Welsh regional government to “act in a manner to ensure the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
Sophie suggested that if everyone had legislation like this, COP would not be necessary, because long ago we would have acted on the evidence.
It sets out seven wellbeing goals developed in consultation with the Welsh people:
- Prosperous
- Resilient
- Healthier
- More equal
- Globally responsible
- Vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language
- Cohesive Communities.
and five principles for making decisions:
- Involvement
- Integration
- Collaboration
- Long-term
- Preventative.
The impacts are now being felt throughout policymaking across all areas of government.
An example is the cancellation of a motorway project, with investment instead in rail, bus and active travel. Another is the application of a public health lens to transport planning, resulting in active travel routes in the poorest communities, and sustainable urban drainage and more green spaces, leading for example to a 78% increase in Cardiff in sustainable travel to school.
Friday 12 November: Closing Day
Today the 26th Conference of the Parties official schedule of events draws to a close although, of course, the political negotiations go on into the weekend.
I attended an event that for the first time brought a discussion on nuclear fusion at a COP.
The session brought together nuclear fusion people from “big science” with the voice of entrepreneurs seeing this as the next target for transformational commercialisation. Fusion recreates conditions at the centre of the sun and hence has to deal with extremes – of heat, of magnetic fields, of precision in control.
Fuel is (in principle) cheap and inexhaustible, the process theoretically intrinsically safe, and with zero-waste. Public sector funding at international level and at scale has been devoted to fusion for many decades, and the ITER project in France should have its first plasma in 2025.
This is a massive international effort, and countries like the USA, China, Russia and India, are collaborating without politics – in itself a remarkable feat.
There is a need now to consider commercialisation and a regulatory environment that will support first power station projects, which could happen as early as 2035-2040. This needs to have globally consistent approaches, so technology can be deployed in multiple locations.
So the promise of fusion, not so long ago always 50 years away – now looks rather closer. Let us hope so.
…and finally…
A great session on the BEIS MacKay Carbon Calculator, a tool developed by the UK government to make visible the complexities, challenges and trade-offs in achieving net zero.
Intended for use by anyone, from policymakers to school classes, this brings together the best scientific and engineering understanding to present net zero choices across all sources of emissions as a series of “levers” that can be operated in any combination to achieve the target.
Importantly, the process to develop the calculations and lever settings behind the graphical interface is a collaborative activity that brings diverse government, NGO and private sector stakeholders together to debate the many complexities involved; and those involved say that this is almost as valuable as the resulting output.
The calculator is being customised in a range of versions, at a global scale, for different countries and even individual cities.
We heard from the Nigerian government about their development of a version for Nigeria and its use in a major energy policy reset there, and from Lancaster University about how it is used in teaching.
I have booked a slot to explore this with my local community – you could do the same.
Visit the MacKay Carbon Calculator.
So what to take away from this amazing immersion in this “Davos for the climate”...or maybe as much “Woodstock for the climate”?
Progress at government level was definite and significant, but perhaps was always going to fall short of expectation.
The positive surprises for me were the strength of depth of energy and commitment from business, the extent of action happening at city level globally, and the pace at which the USA is now embracing the climate challenge.
Negatives were that we are only now really starting on adaptation, and on enabling change in the global South.
There is a huge challenge for the whole of humanity to act at the scale and pace needed and working together is the only way forward.
Greta Thunberg’s diagnosis is spot-on, but the blah blah blah does produce results and is all we really have to make progress.
National governments are all accountable to their citizens for the commitments they can make, and we don’t yet have most people in most countries crying out for action – if they did things would change a lot faster.
There are signs of acceleration – in the mainstreaming of climate into business, in the pace of renewables deployment, in cost reduction through driving scale, indecisive shifts in markets, in the time to bring new technologies to scale deployment. But still a huge amount to do.
For engineers and technologists, the opportunities are pivotal, and the chance to make impacts enormous.
But we also need to keep speaking out about the need for systemic policies and action across the world, the need to focus on delivery as much as policy, and that technology is only part of a complex ecosystem of solutions and only succeeds by public consent.
Just as importantly we need to talk in our own networks about why this matters and what needs to be done.
I’ll be doing this – if you’re in the UK try this tool to help you do the same.