Next year might be better. It needs to be. World leaders achieved only qualified successes at Azerbaijan’s recent UN COP29 global climate summit, Columbia’s COP16 biodiversity conference, and South Korea’s international plastic pollution conference. However, the East Lancs Chamber Low Carbon and RedCAT teams have been able to make significant 2024 low carbon and green-tech headway in the UK and overseas.
Last month will be remembered for COP29, the annual global climate summit which this year was a qualified success on some fronts but left other urgent issues in abeyance until 2025’s COP30 in Brazil – which will once again be a key forum for Lancashire’s innovative low carbon green-tech.
As always, money in the form of internationally-agreed finance was a stumbling block – the sums developing countries need to become low carbon economies. Reparations for past climate change damage will be another serious future challenge unless the politics change significantly.
But, as explained below, the ten-day COP29 gathering was a major success for Northwest companies in the East Lancs business team that travelled to the shores of the Caspian Sea as both a trade mission and influencers with key green-tech messages for world leaders making critical decisions.
Clean energy technology is the future …
For influence, our team led by the Chamber’s Director of Sustainability, Stephen Sykes and East Lancs Chamber and RedCAT CEO Prof. Miranda Barker OBE DL made important governmental-level contacts who are very keen to support our expanding low carbon and green technology activities, as explained below.
As a trade mission, the team included six Lancashire companies with advanced green-tech solutions to sell that the world needs urgently – a point underlined in a major commercialisation step forward achieved by Carbonbit Technologies (https://carbonbit.com/blogs/carbonbit-technologies-signs-mou-at-cop29/ ).
The company based at the Blackburn Technology Management Centre signed a £10 million memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Azerbaijan Investment Company which CEO Philip Hargreaves describes as “game-changing” for the innovator’s carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) technology. More on that too in a moment.
Other commercial members of the Baku team who we will speak to in more detail in the New Year were: –
– Alasdair Croft of AMP EV which specialises in the design, supply, installation and maintenance of electric vehicle charge points.
– Junaid Patel of renewable energy company BGreenn that helps UK homes, businesses, and public organisations switch to low carbon technologies.
– Zak Khan of Qwala which as a retrofitting specialist modifies existing buildings to reduce energy consumption and emissions.
– Xiongwei Liu of Entrust Microgrid experts in smart microgrid systems maximising cost savings from modern energy systems.
– Stephen Sykes of 2030hub which as the world’s first UN-recognised Local2030 Hub and a certified B Corp was created to make cities and businesses stronger.
Remember, remember – November problems at COP16 and latest UN global plastic summit (INC-5)
However, two other events that should be important in shaping the future world failed to reach their goals.
On 5th November, COP16 opened in Columbia when 167 nations gathered to help safeguard the increasingly vulnerable natural world in an event dubbed the ‘Paris Agreement for nature’.
Regrettably, mis-management of the agenda meant that many delegates had to catch booked flights home before key decisions were taken.
One major unresolved sticking point is the thorny issue of raising $200 billion annually to finance global mitigation measures – plus a lack of ambitious new evolving plans. On the positive side, the link between biodiversity and climate action was finally acknowledged.
Until now, the climate crisis has benefitted from some eight times more media coverage than biodiversity loss – which probably reflects the world’s psychological order of priorities. This is a subject we will get into in the New Year.
– Disenchanted forests plus oceans of waste
If the summit to protect world fauna and flora came to an inauspicious end pending delegates reconvene again in Armenia in 2026 – though there will be interim discussions – the outcome of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC-5) in Busan, South Korea which ended on 2 December was even worse.
It closed with no agreement to curb environmental global damage caused by plastics pollution (https://www.unep.org/inc-plastic-pollution).
Despite more than two years of pre-negotiations and the efforts of more than 3,300 delegates from some 170 countries, an adjournment will make a ‘Chair’s Text’ the starting point for new negotiations in 2025.
According to the EU, there was a clear divide between major oil-producing countries with a vested interest in maintaining oil output, and the ‘High Ambition Coalition’ (the EU, the UK, Canada, plus many African, Latin American and Pacific states). Which sounds strangely familiar in the light of COP29.
– Recycling is not enough … cutting primary production is essential
The EU says the main problem was staunch opposition to proposals to cut production of primary plastic polymers made from oil – with Saudi Arabia and Russia in the crosshairs – plus, limits on chemicals of concern in plastic products, and problematic and avoidable plastic products.
EU commissioner for the Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, Jessika Roswall, warns that if business as usual continues, plastic production will triple by 2060.
At present, globally some 400 million tonnes (Mt) is produced annually, with only circa 9% of all plastics made to date recycled and 12% incinerated. The remainder goes to landfill – or enters the global environment, from food and human bodies to ocean depths and the frozen polar reaches.
The hope is to see global bans and phaseouts of harmful plastics and chemicals, global product design changes, a robust finance mechanism, and means for strengthening the treaty over time.
East Lancs Chamber/RedCAT Trade Mission COP29 successes …
COP29 as a whole struggled to meet expectations. An initial $300 billion package was pledged to help developing countries decarbonise en-route toward $1.3 trillion annually by 2035. Global South nations wanted more funding to mitigate imminent environmental threats. There was no fossil fuel phaseout progress. But a framework was agreed to make carbon markets operational.
However, from a UK and Lancashire perspective, we were very successful. In context, as an officially UNFCCC-recognised NGO, we were able to work in the Blue Zone where key global decisions were made, and network commercially in the Green Zone.
As the Co-Chair of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) Climate Challenge Group, we worked closely with the BCC Azerbaijan, and BCC overseas, to develop a BCC COP29 business programme supporting global BCC delegates in all things COP-related.
As influencers, we stressed the importance of green-tech innovators in the global clean energy transition – lobbying hard for more late-stage commercialisation public finance and explaining how low carbon technologies have the potential to generate huge economic and environmental benefits.
In parallel, as commercial innovators, our individual company team members made international contacts and explored export opportunities for Northwest green-tech.
Working closely with the Government …
A particularly welcome outcome was the further development of close working relationships with the DESNZ team (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero).
Miranda was asked to join a round table with Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to highlight barriers the UK must cross to realise its full green economic potential. She also questioned with Mr Miliband how UK green-tech deployment into the Global South could be best supported.
We also look forward to working with Lee McDonough – Director General, Net Zero, Nuclear and International at DESNZ, Anneliese Dodds – Minister of State for Development, Nigel Topping – head of the new National Wealth Fund, and incoming Climate Change Committee (CCC) CEO, Emma Pinchbeck.
Former climate change czar, Chris Skidmore OBE, who helped to set up Desmos Capital Partners earlier this year to support SMEs in scaling and raising capital, also chose the BCC COP29 event to announce new regional centres in Paris, Amsterdam, Johannesburg and Toronto, in addition to the UK, France, Canada and United Arab Emirates (UAE) named in July.
Chris is keen to work closely with us and Lancashire green-tech companies in the future.
Carbonbit Technologies signs MOU …
Carbonbit Technologies’ Direct Air Capture and Point Source Capture technology – currently at prototype stage (TRL5/6) with a patent pending – is designed to remove carbon dioxide from both the atmosphere and flue gases to help meet the crucial net zero emissions by 2050 target.
Philip Hargreaves is CEO of Carbonbit – a multi-disciplinary global sustainability consulting practice – and has supported a wide range of UK- and US-based companies on their ESG journeys.
At COP29, he signed the MOU with the Azerbaijan Investment Company having led the technology’s conceptualisation to TRL5/6 (Technology Readiness Levels https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/somd/space-communications-navigation-program/technology-readiness-levels/).
The next goal is for it to able to remove 40 million tonnes of CO2 annually from the atmosphere by 2040 at lowest cost with minimum downtime and maximum circularity.
The MOU was described by the company’s Chief Innovation Officer, co-founder and nuclear scientist, Dylan Jordan, as “… a significant step forward in collaborative efforts to bring our technology to market and have a positive impact on climate change, whilst also aiming to develop highly skilled jobs in manufacturing, robotics and artificial intelligence.
He added that the company expects to attract investment “ … to progress from the build phase to the growth phase, aiming to capture atmospheric carbon at less than $100 per ton of CO2“.
East Lancs Chamber and RedCAT have supported development of the company’s new sorbent technology, alongside Lancashire-based prototype-build partner, the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), Innovate UK, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Lancashire and UK manufacturing supply chain will also be crucial to its further development (https://carbonbit.com/blogs/carbonbit-technologies-signs-mou-at-cop29/).
UN world court to rule on climate questions …
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has begun hearing testimony from circa 100 countries to form a legal opinion of what countries should do to fight climate change and repair damages linked to rising temperatures. The case opened a week after COP29 ended.
While not legally binding, this could add extra weight to climate change lawsuits around the world. The court will also hear from countries that include the US and China, plus oil-producing representatives of OPEC.
Asking the court to issue a legal opinion was originally proposed five years ago by law students in Fiji. It was then taken up by Vanuatu, an island nation facing rising temperatures and sea levels.
Under pressure from Vanuatu and other nations, the UN General Assembly then referred two important climate questions to the ICJ. These related to obligations countries have under international law to protect the Earth’s climate ecosystem from greenhouse gas emission impacts.
The court was also asked to rule on legal consequences where states “by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment.”
The hearings ended on 13 December; the court’s opinion is expected in 2025. Its ruling could affect cases where small island states want financial recompense from the developed world for loss and damage attributed to historic emissions.
