Decarbonisation Technology May 2022 Issue

What is your Decarbonisation SCORE? To simplify your journey to decarbonisation, our Decarbonisation SCORE methodology provides a roadmap to setting and delivering emissions reduction targets

Dan Carter Wood

The challenge today to create a better tomorrow In the Paris Agreement in 2015, governments acknowledged that their national climate targets at the time would not meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5˚C. 2020 was the target year to submit long-term strategies and for emissions to reach a peak. COP26 reaffirmed commitments to global carbon reduction goals, with individual countries now asked to adopt more ambitious and stringent targets in order to achieve a scenario of less than 1.5˚C global temperature rise, and to report on these targets by the end of 2022. The recent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report also stated that carbon reduction commitments made prior to COP26 were not enough to reduce the impacts of climate change to less than a 1.5˚C average temperature rise, and would also make it harder post-2030 to limit the overall average temperature increase to less than 2˚C (IPCC, 2022). However, the report also recognised that the costs of several low emissions technologies, which have seen significant investment over the last decade, including solar, wind and battery technology, have fallen and continue to fall. Drivers to decarbonise Scientific efforts to quantify the scale of the challenge have helped us to better understand the need for decarbonisation, whilst the urgency for action is now sharply in the minds of policy makers, shapers, and governments. This has led to pressure on organisations to build from multiple angles to create a more sustainable

economic, environmental, and social pathway. We are a world in transition. The momentum behind energy transition is accelerating. Many nations are setting out their ambitions, targets, and policies, and over 100 countries committed to cutting CO2 to net zero by 2050, representing 70% of the world economy (UN, 2020). Organisations and governments are responding to the need to change as well as pressure from global governments, investors, clients, and end users. The consensus at COP26 was that the progress made since 2015 has not been enough, and an unprecedented effort is required by countries to cut the level of emissions and get back on track. However, emissions are increasingly impacting the balance sheet with the growing development of carbon pricing, whether through emissions trading systems or carbon taxes. Energy, heat production, and industrial processes account for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions. The pathway to reducing the carbon emissions of extractive and process industries will need to leverage a breadth of solutions, but the applicable solution set will also differ, depending on geographies, enterprise portfolios, and the characteristics of individual assets. Innovative solutions need to be secure, scalable, and reliable, leaning on product and industry expertise to deliver a better world for the future. Although these are drivers mostly affecting your bottom line, it is imperative to mention that these are not the only reasons why immediate action is recommended, but also the real threats climate change has on our world, cities, houses, families, and even our own lives. What is at