• Question: How close are you to finding a solution to climate change?

    Asked by anon-255949 to Jonny on 1 Jun 2020.
    • Photo: Jonny Furze

      Jonny Furze answered on 1 Jun 2020:

      Hi Catherine,

      Great question!

      Thankfully we already know the main causes for climate change. As humans we put a lot of gases into the atmosphere that are know to heat up the Earth, these are the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2). They are emitted when we burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas to create electricity, and from cars and planes inside the combustion engine. Increasing in the overall temperature of the Earth with these gases changes the climate, hence the name climate change.

      The most obvious solution to climate change would be to stop emitting all of these greenhouse gases, sounds simple right? However, we’ve all become used to and reliant on electricity and cars and planes in our modern way of life, so it’s not as simple as switching all of the power stations off and stopping people from using cars and planes.

      One solution that scientists and engineers are working on is coming up with new technologies that can generate electricity without burning fossil fuels, solar panels and wind turbines are an example of this. If this was paired up with electric powered vehicles then two of the largest greenhouse gas emitting sources can be removed.

      The main issue behind climate change isn’t actually the science, scientists and engineers have developed technologies like these for over 30 years and have been telling people and campaigning against climate change for even longer than that!! The issue is getting the general public and all of the politicians over the world to believe the science and understand the problem. If all of the technologies that have been developed were used on a large scale in every country then the climate change problem could be sorted. However, making this happen is unfortunately not a simple task.

      If you want anymore detail on this answer please just ask =]

Comments

  • Photo: Enrica

    Enrica commented on :

    Hi, that is a very good question asked to the very people that are working towards the right solution.
    No one can know exactly how far we are from the solution, but as far as I can tell from my field of work, there are several good development projects within the Methanol and Hydrogen technologies that will help in the next few years to reduce the out take of the CO2 to the atmosphere.
    It will be then a matter of convincing as many Clients as possible to trust the new technologies and invest on them. Finger crossed!

  • Photo: anon-256062

    anon-256062 commented on :

    Thank you both so much for answering my question. Your work sounds so interesting!

  • Photo: Ronan

    Ronan commented on :

    The solutions are already available, at first approximation. It is just a matter of cost. Decarbonizing our economy will result in increased cost of energy and other products. That could be paid for by governments through subsidies, or by consumers directly and indirectly.
    If a nation chooses unilaterally to decarbonise, they may find their products are harder to export, leading to a double whammy of increased costs and reduced revenues. If All nations choose to decarbonize, then some will have advantages and some won’t.
    It will all cost money and time, but ultimately it is about political will.