Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

INTRODUCTIONneering in the context of investment in infrastructure in therecovery from the financial and economic crisis. The major andagreed findings of the IPCC are as follows:■■■The planet has warmedMost warming is due to greenhouse gasesGreenhouse gases will continue to increase through thetwenty-first centuryThe IPCC also recognizes that climate models have greatlyimproved, and estimates a rise in the average global temperatureof 1.8 – 4.0°C over the twenty-first century, and warnsthat a temperature rise of anything over 2.0°C is likely to becatastrophic for the world. Immediate action is thereforeneeded to prevent catastrophic and irreversible change to theworld’s climate.Engineering is one of the most important activities in the contextof climate change mitigation and adaptation and, as notedelsewhere, one of the major areas of need and growth for engineeringis in the area of sustainable or green engineering. Manycountries have already introduced policies and initiatives forclimate change mitigation and adaptation prior to the 2009United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen,and together with the specific outcomes of COP15, this will beone of the areas of greatest demand and challenge that engineeringhas ever faced. One of the first challenges is to makesure that there will be enough appropriately qualified andexperienced engineers to meet this demand – this will requirethe development of new courses, training materials and systemsof accreditation. This will also hopefully encourage youngpeople into engineering.Photo by Robert Howlett Isambard Kingdom Brunel – a founding father of modernengineering.21