The world is warming up
Since the 1970s the earth has warmed by 1˚C.
Just recently scientists recorded another record high temperature in the Antarctic.
Temperatures are still going up now as we speak.
Why is this?
When the Industrial Revolution took off in the mid 19th Century we started burning fossil fuels - gas, coal and oil at an incredible rate to feed our growing economies and populations.
These fossil fuels took millions of years to form, during which time much of the world’s carbon was captured and stored by them.
This created the delicate natural balance that enabled life to flourish as we know it.
In fact since 1950, we have released more than 2,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes (2Ttonnes) of carbon in the form of CO2 gas back into the atmosphere.
We have more than doubled the amount of carbon up there, when compared to hundreds of thousands, even millions of years ago and at an incredibly fast rate.
What is the impact?
CO2 released from fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases (from e.g animals, heating land or farm fertilisers) block the suns’ rays from escaping the earth’s atmosphere – creating a greenhouse effect that heats the planet.
As well as the atmosphere, carbon and heat has been captured in the oceans, warming them as well and making them more acidic.
Some sea animals can’t survive in more acidic water. Our coral reefs are suffering too.
In fact many, many species are dying out altogether as a result of climate change. The rich diversity of life on this planet is getting smaller.
What this means if we don’t do something about it
Our climate is very sensitive and is not used to such sudden changes.
Even now, a 1˚temperature rise is having an effect – more floods, droughts, fires.
Scientists say that a 2˚C temperature rise or more will have much more serious consequences.
The ice stored in the earth’s poles will melt over time. This will raise sea levels by many metres, drowning low-lying areas.
Permanently frozen land areas will melt, releasing unknown amounts of methane – a very powerful greenhouse gas.
Sadly even now we cannot stop some of the planetary changes we are seeing from happening.
If nothing is done we will see far worse and more dramatic changes before the end of this century. These will impact everyone of us.
Low-lying areas, including many cities, will disappear altogether.
Many parts of the world will become completely uninhabitable.
What we need to do
Scientists say we must keep the temperature rise below 2˚ by the end of this century.
Let’s look at the things that need doing.
Energy and Power
We must stop burning fossil fuels to make energy.
We have started to build more renewable energy – wind farms, solar energy and nuclear energy.
We also have other technologies like wave and tidal power, hydroelectric power, biomass (plant) energy and hydrogen energy.
This is great because it shows we can change things for the better.
Because renewable energy is volatile, it changes as the wind blows or the sun shines, so we still need some ‘firm’, energy (energy that may still emit carbon when it is made) that is continuous.
The carbon emitted by this firm energy needs then to be captured and stored underground – a process called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).
We still don’t fully know how to deploy CCS at the right scale.
We also need to work out properly how to store all the carbon from CCS back underground.
Consumers and businesses can help too.
We need to use energy more efficiently and at different times of the day or night (‘smart’), so we don’t get high peaks in demand, and rely too much on this firm energy.
Because renewable energy gets turned into electrical power, which we can then use in our homes and businesses, the electrical distribution systems will need to be increased to handle the extra power.
The electrical infrastructure will need to be roughly doubled.
Transportation
We have to stop using petrol or diesel for cars, rail, aviation or shipping.
We can all change to using electric cars and vans.
But there needs to be a big increase in the number of charging points, including ultra-fast ones.
Vehicle battery technology needs to get better as well so that batteries last longer.
Larger vehicles will need hydrogen energy. Hydrogen energy only releases water when it is used so it is harmless.
But a lot of work is needed to understand properly how to make hydrogen efficiently, from electrolysers or other means.
Any carbon generated when hydrogen is made also needs storing back underground through CCS.
So much of our rail infrastructure is not electrified – it still relies on diesel power. This must be a first priority.
Rail, light rail and metro systems are ideal ways of transporting people about using electricity.
Shipping and aviation are a big problem. How do we stop using fossil fuel energy for them?
In aviation we can create what’s called synthetic fuels without using precious fossil fuels.
This would work because all we then need to do is make sure CCS is used to recapture any carbon emitted in the manufacture of them.
Shipping could potentially shift to hydrogen or ammonia fuels. Again these could be protected in their manufacture by CCS.
But more work is needed to develop these fuels.
Land use
We must start using our land better to recapture some of the atmospheric carbon up there.
Planting trees is a great way of storing carbon again naturally.
We should be reforesting most of our land, recreating the environment of woods and trees we had some hundreds of years ago.
Animal farming creates methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas.
Animal farming also uses so much space for growing animals and growing animal feed.
We must drastically reduce animal farming in favour of arable farming.
As consumers, we need to switch more and more away from eating animals.
Consumers will change their habits if they understand the reasons why through media campaigns and through incentives.
By making more space by switching away from animals, we can use it efficiently for planting trees and growing the crops we need to eat.
We must also stop burning peatland. This generates methane and carbon.
We need to regenerate peatland instead.
Fertilisers too are a powerful greenhouse gas. These must be used much more wisely and we need to manufacture them without raising carbon levels in the atmosphere.
Finally we need to grow plants as fuel for using in Biomass energy plants (coupled with CCS) for renewable energy.
These are huge changes for our land and agriculture.
To make changes of this scale the land population needs support.
We also need an education and training programme to help the population to create and maintain the kind of land use we need in the future.
Industry
Industry is a large emitter of carbon and other greenhouse gases.
Some examples of this are heating and important industrial processes that use fossil fuel power.
Also ‘flaring’ where fuel is wasted and burnt off.
Industrial processes themselves emit carbon and other greenhouse gases.
Heat networks are needed so that heat from renewable sources is transferred in a network to heat industrial spaces
Space heating needs to shift from fossil fuel power to heat pumps, powered by electricity.
Industrial processes must change from using non-renewable power to hydrogen, biomethane or electrical power from renewable sources.
Industrial processes need to adopt the latest ‘efficient’ processes to avoid wasting energy.
Finally CCS needs to be introduced wherever carbon is emitted into the atmosphere.
Again these changes are significant and need rapid development of the new technologies to support them: hydrogen power, carbon capture and storage, heat pumps and heating networks.
Buildings
Domestic housing and business premises emit a large proportion of carbon in two ways: heating space and powering appliances and other equipment.
Firstly heating; much of our housing stock is poorly insulated.
We are not good at introducing and enforcing stronger regulations about how we should build well-insulated houses or how we should properly insulate older houses and other buildings.
Regulations must extend to how new and existing buildings are heated.
Most buildings are heated using fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal) and also wood.
Instead we need to use space heaters called heat pumps that are powered by electricity or use the natural warmth of the land around buildings.
But we don’t yet have a good understanding of the best kinds of heat pumps.
We also don’t have a skilled workforce yet to do all the installations.
Both of these issues, alongside regulation, must be dealt with quickly if we are to make changes to our buildings effective for the long-term.
Solar energy also plays its part.
Many of our houses and buildings are connected to the gas network. As a short-term measure, biomethane or hydrogen could be used instead of gas in the networks – reducing the carbon footprint of buildings.
Power for buildings can be changed in two ways:
firstly through greater use of renewable electrical power
and secondly through changing consumer and business behaviours through regulations and incentives to use high-efficiency appliances and equipment.
Consumption emissions
It may be surprising to know that in many developed countries, the biggest impact on carbon emissions are the imports we buy and use.
In the UK this represents 60% of all domestic emissions again!
This is because we import more than we export and the goods we import generate carbon emissions during their manufacture.
All those appliances, foods, clothes, building materials and raw commodities, actually generate more carbon in their manufacture and transport than all the Power, Building and Transportation carbon we generate domestically.
Current plans countries have for reducing carbon do not account for these consumption emissions at all.
To change this we need to start accounting properly for it.
We also need to incentivise purchase of low carbon imported goods over high-carbon goods perhaps through introducing import tariffs to make high-carbon goods more expensive.
We need to highlight high-carbon goods through trade descriptions and labels.
We need to mobilise the population to stop consuming so much and wasting so much.
And when purchases are made, we make a preference for low-carbon goods.
How do we do it
Everyone must play their part.
At the top we need leadership. This must be the highest priority for any Government.
Because if it is not the highest priority we will not succeed in limiting temperature rises to 2˚C.
And the consequences of that for this generation and future generations are potentially catastrophic.
Our leadership must be honest with us and show they care. This means Manifesto commitments and mass communication, alongside changing legislation and regulation to bring change into effect.
Change is first of all costly and we must find economic instruments that make the burden fall as fairly as possible. This means a mix of taxation, incentives, risk-sharing and other support.
Our economic institutions must devise solutions to pay for the changes.
Our education, research, engineering, scientific, industrial and media institutions must work to develop solutions to key challenges:
• Understanding how climate change will develop and its impact
• Measuring and monitoring changes as accurately and comprehensively as possible
• Developing effective CCS solutions, Hydrogen generation and synthetic fuel technologies
• Planning for larger and new electrical, carbon and hydrogen networks
• Developing effective building heat pump solutions
• Planning the precise agricultural changes required
• Communicating with people, accurately, honestly and all the time.
There must be a mass mobilisation of public opinion.
Coupled with political will alongside rapid invention and understanding of new solutions.
Every country will have slightly different priorities in this regard but the overall objective is the same.
The changes needed to our way of thinking and the practical steps outlined here will take time.
But we have little time left so we need to make rapid strides forward, now.