Our Net Zero team recently attended the Climate Innovation Forum as part of London Climate Action Week. Here are some thoughts from the day…
It was at the first fireside chat on closing the skills gap that the panel discussed the irony of the fact that we are indeed sitting on a fire – climate change.
The overarching message from the Climate Innovation Forum was that we need an integrated and collaborative approach. We’re not just talking about emissions – we’re talking about everything from green skills and building equitable solutions to retrofitting our homes. Tackling climate change requires building a sustainable infrastructure and transitioning people and skills through this.
As London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “Our city is at the forefront of this global struggle. And where our capital leads, others will follow.”
Here are some of our key takeaways.
We need an immediate response
Covid-19 required an immediate response – we didn’t have a 27 year countdown to deliver on it. We looked at the skills, resources and technology we had to work with, and we collaborated. Climate change also requires action now. We’ve finally reached agreement on the direction of travel and the end point, now we need an implementable roadmap.
Collaboration is essential
We need to learn from those around us and replicate what has worked in other cities. China launched its first electric bus fleet in 2011 and now they have over 200,000. From 2022, Bogota launched a public transit entity made up entirely of electric buses, with about half the drivers being women. Global collaboration and consensus between cities and nations is essential to solve the problem. We need to deploy infrastructure, people and stakeholders from both the private and public sector to make real change happen.
A green skills revolution is required
We need to create 50 million new jobs to deliver on the UK’s net zero targets – the speed of transformation is crazy. But as our client City & Guilds’ latest research found, many of the energy sector workers with boots on the ground don’t feel like the industry is ready for the green future. We must invest in a robust green skills pipeline.
We need equitable solutions
Women are missing from too many conversations around climate change. They’re also missing from leadership – only 16% of board members worldwide and 25% of UK ministers in parliament are female. But we can’t innovate without diverse perspectives. We need to bring in new architects and innovators whose voices so far have not been heard.
We can’t let data – or a lack of – hold us back
We’re all too fixated on having substantial data to reference and help guide us, but by the time we have all the answers it’ll already be too late. We need to take more risks – we know what we need to do, we now need to do it.
Societal costs need to be recognised
Wider costs of the impact of climate change such as droughts and fires need to be recognised as being a part of today’s ‘total energy cost’. In fact, 7-9 million people a year die from climate change and pollution. We can’t lose sight of the people at the heart of this transformation – they’re not passive players. What is at risk should we get this wrong is the lives of millions. Societal costs must be included if we’re to calculate the true cost.
Catalysing local action
Across cities we can see the effects of climate change very clearly – each day we see more and more polluted streets, rising temperatures and extreme flooding. But we can also see solutions. National government can’t meet its targets without working closely with cities across the UK. And each city needs more policy support from the national government, more investment to avoid future potential costs, and the space and freedom to be dynamic and empowered to make change happen.
We need to be more humble
We’ve been here before, we’re not working with a blank canvas. Only 50 years ago we transitioned from coal to gas. We need to lean on the learnings from these experiences, both in terms of the failures and successes, to see how we can move on from them.
