Fast Tracking Knowledge and Human Capital for Net Zero Energy Systems
When world leaders come together to discuss a common goal as they did during the climate summit COP26, this collaboration can deliver some notable achievements.
The Breakthrough Agenda is one ambitious outcome from the talks in Glasgow, a pledge from more than 40 countries to ‘turbo-charge’ the uptake of clean technologies with an aim of making it easier to channel global private investment into low-carbon infrastructure.
Although government-led targets can drive forward global progress, the urgency of the climate crisis cries for further action. Even in light of a now-scientifically proven existential threat, humanity has trouble overcoming the massive barriers of national interest, company self-interest, system inertia and gross inequality. It feels like we are still a long way off keeping the 1.5 degree ambition alive, and the UK government’s Climate Change Committee has re-enforced this again: ‘the UK must not walk away after COP26… at home, we need to walk the talk and urgently deliver actions in the Net Zero Strategy’.
This article is by Dr Andy Gilchrist of MPLS’s Innovation and Business Partnerships Team, and The Energy Systems Accelerator Oxford.