Experts Call for Accelerated Effort to Thwart Global Warming

The transportation industry and other global sectors need to accelerate environmental initiatives to meet the goals set by the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, according to panelists at a sustainability symposium this month in Venice.

The two-day conference, entitled “Global Warming and Decarbonization,” featured about three dozen environmental experts from industry, academia, government and research organizations. The event was hosted by materials specialist Alcantara SpA and Venice International University.

Most participants agreed that considerable progress has been made toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But they say much more is needed to limit the rise in global temperatures to below 2˚C compared with pre-industrial era levels, as called for under the Paris agreement.

Temperatures already have risen 1˚C and the last four years are the four hottest in modern history, notes Daniel Klingenfeld, director’s staff chief for Germany’s Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. At this pace, he warns, temperatures will rise 3˚C or more by the end of the century even if all signatory nations meet their individual targets.

Many speakers advocate an even more aggressive cap of 1.5˚C is needed to significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. This will require 80% of the world’s energy to be derived from renewable sources by 2050 compared with 20%, says Detlef van Vuuren, professor of integrated assessment of global environmental change at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

The world must become carbon neutral by 2060 with a virtually 100% conversion to all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles, asserts Cecilia Tam, senior energy analyst for the International Energy Agency (IEA), a Paris-based intergovernmental group. As part of the transition, she says, there needs to be a corresponding conversion to clean sources of electricity and hydrogen for EVs and fuel cells, respectively.

“Cradle-to-grave analysis shows sustainable transport needs sustainable electricity, green hydrogen, or green gaseous and liquid fuels,” adds Hermann Pengg, who heads Audi’s e-fuels program.

Near term, there needs to be efficiency improvements in traditional piston engines and batteries, says Yasuhiro  Daisho, senior research professor next generation vehicles research council at Japan’s Waseda University. He expects next-generation battery technologies, such as metal-air and solid-state chemistries, with as much as three times the energy density as current systems to be introduced in the next decade.

“Technology is moving faster than we thought,” agrees Nicholas Stern, professor of economics and chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. “I’m becoming more optimistic about what we can do, but more worried about whether we’ll do it.”

Companies must invest more in advanced research and development to ensure they meet future goals, according to Barbara Buchner, executive director of the climate finance program for the Climate Policy Initiative. She advocates annual spending of as much as $1 trillion by the energy sector alone on green technologies—compared with $383 billion in 2016—to meet the Paris targets.

In addition to electrification, biofuels, solar and wind, investments need to be made into little known or yet-to-be-invented technologies, Tam adds. She says IEA currently is tracking 26 different low-carbon technologies. “We need a wide basket of solutions, societal changes and tremendous political will with strategies varying by country and sometimes by city.”

Stern says radical changes are needed in the next 15 years as the world’s energy requirements continue to increase and the population grows and shifts to city centers. He envisions a future of energy efficient smart cities with a network of shared, autonomous, electrified and connected vehicles.