The Lens of Energy & Sustainability

August 17th, 2021, less than 100 days before the COP26 in Glasgow, the UK’s leadership on climate action is already being questioned. From fossil fuels to carbon offsetting, the UK government needs to accelerate actions to prevent failure to rule out new oilfields in the North Sea. With the latest IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above the industrial levels and global greenhouse gas emission pathways, the real threat of global warming is not an illusion.

A scientific warning is necessary to prevent the most catastrophic impacts of climate breakdown. Slow action but more promises is not an option. A lot to do, a few has been achieved, a long way to go if the UK is not taking extreme measures now as a leading nation in Europe. 

(1) Demand the Impossible | 23 August 2021 | Trafalgar Square | Extinction Rebellion UK – YouTube

Heading up the upcoming 23rd August, climate activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR) in the UK took us back in the Paris Agreement commitment in 2015, whereas all nations agreed that global warming has been dangerous and caused a wide and serious impact and that our world leaders agreed to hold global warming below 2°C and then 1.5°C. 

“Today, the range is beyond the promise. The Paris Agreement set on 1.5°C while current pledges go to +2.4C, the policy reflects +2.9C, almost reached irreversible damage. Inadequate legislation, green home scheme and many recent pledges from Trump to Biden, Johnson, G7, have not tackled the situation,” said an XR representative in an online briefing on August 17th.

In London, the UK financial institutions were reported to grant funding to carbon emitters businesses. The billions of investments in fossil fuel in the G7 implied the government’s lack of seriousness in tackling climate change. “Scientific evidence has been clear. The world is in a climate emergency. The words do not replace action while CO2 keeps going up. We need the world leaders to convert pledges to real action,”urged the XR representative.  

To maintain global warming below 1.5°C and reduce carbon emissions, the government and corporations need to understand the scale and source of the catastrophe. Lifestyle change from an individual to even a substantial number will not help reduce carbon footprint, while corporations still profit from fossil fuel. 

Any and all effort to reduce carbon reduction remain critical to prevent global warming but collectively, the world has not done enough to significantly reduce carbon footprint and preserve the environment, said the XR representative, pointing out that major CO2 emitters – including but not limited to the use non-renewable energy, agriculture, deforestation, illegal fishing as well as peat burn and mangrove destruction – are still rampant in many countries.

Meanwhile, a historian and climate activist from the Northeast of England, Peter Sagar, said that phasing out carboniferous capitalism is easier said than done and reminded that it took decades for the British government to transitioned from fossil-fueled industry to using renewable energy.

“A lot of mines were closed in the 1980s. However, they weren’t closed for environmental purposes but to punish mining communities, including those in Northumberland and County Durham, because the mining unions had helped to bring down a Tory government ten years earlier. There is still coal mining going on in the UK today,” Sagar said, adding concerns that the UK had still a “long way to go” to achieve net-zero emissions due to ongoing exploitation of enormous reserves of coal, oil and gas in Northeast UK.   

Record in transition from coal and fossil fuel also exposed that the largest shipbuilding industry, of which the Northeastis known for its history, was also impacted, Sagar said, who added that transferable skill set from shipbuilding can be utilized for rig operations and from subsea technology and pipeline and decommissioning work alongside Whitley Bay to Seaton Sluice coastal area.

He said growing research by some UK universities in the field of green sector growth is also a sign of progress in renewable energy, with the Northeast region having advantages in wind power. “It is a primary location for green and renewable energy, with the heritage of extensive experience, skills set in producing renewable energy, engineering and technology.”

“Let’s take Northeast not as an ex-coal and fossil fuel producer, but in a more positive way. By phasing out coal, we rediscover that the spirit, confidence from the past that delivers inventions, such as railway, the light bulb, hydraulic cranes. Northeast is the centre of the green energy revolution,” Sagar explained.  

Referring to Better Meets Reality, Sagar pointed out: “Back then, renewable didn’t have political determination and lobbying, infrastructure to support any development and decentralisation of transmission for solar and wind for smaller scale.”

“Legal, contract, negotiation across regions were messy and there were also intermittent issues and reliability. Like wind power, it’s not windy every day. For solar, it’s not sunny everyday. For tidal power, sometimes low tide matters,” Sagarsaid in an interview.

He added that past challenges – the capacity of electricity companies, grid availability and stability and energy resources supply – are still today’s problems.