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

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTFigure 6: Estimated costs of mitigationTrajectories towardsstabilization levels(ppm CO 2‒eq)Median GDP reduction(%)Range of GDP reduction(%)Reduction of averageannual GDP growth rates(percentage points)590 – 710 0.2 ‒0.6 – 1.2 < 0.06535 – 590 0.6 0.2 – 2.5 < 0.1445 – 535 Not available < 3 < 0.12Mitigation measures would induce 0.6% gain to 3% decrease of GDP in 2030Source: IPCCcompared to the likely costs relating to the economic impactsof climate change discussed above.Mitigation potentialThe IPCC Working Group Three report looked at a wholerange of options by which emissions could be reduced, andquantified what is possible in several sectors. We looked atthe energy supply, industry, transportation, household andcommercial buildings, and concluded that the potential formitigation is enormous (Figure 8).Engineering and technological solutionsThe range of stabilization levels of GHGs is something thatthe IPCC decided after looking at the range of technologiesthat are currently available or expected to be commercializedin the coming decades. The stabilization level projectedby the IPCC can be achieved even with existing technologies.The news would be even better if we were to invest enough inresearch and development over a period of time to developnew technologies and new methods, by which there would be asubstantial decline in the cost of mitigation with a correspondingsubstantial increase in the effectiveness of mitigation.What are these technological solutions? If we look around theeconomic sectors, we can immediately see that energy supplyis particularly important because this accounts for 26 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and we clearly need a shiftin supply technologies and supply options, including renewablesof course, and advanced coal, gas and nuclear technologies,super-critical steam plants, and a whole range of othertechnologies. Carbon dioxide capture and storage will be animportant element of the solutions we apply, and combinedheat and power and nuclear fusion could be a possible solutionin the future. Apart from nuclear fusion, these are all technologiesthat are within our reach.The transport sector accounts for 26 per cent of world energyuse, and there are a whole range of possibilities that the IPCChave assessed. Air traffic is one particular segment which clearlyneeds attention because of its rapid growth, and improvementsin air traffic efficiencies, as far as energy use is concerned, is certainlylagging behind several other sectors of the economy. Railtransport is another area where a shift to rail and an improvementin rail technology can make a significant difference.Figure 7: The costs of mitigation relative to GDPGDPIllustration of costs numbersGDP withoutmitigation80%Buildings are important because they will account for 38 percent of baseline emissions in 2020. There is a whole range ofactions that could be taken to make buildings and the use ofenergy within them much more efficient (these are listed onFigure 9). Engineers, architects and builders really need to applytheir minds and innovate in some of these areas in order todevelop some fairly dramatic solutions. In this respect, efficientappliances and heating and cooling devices are unexceptional.CurrentGDP withstringentmitigation~1 Year203077%TimeSource: IPCCAgriculture is also an area where technological solutions canand do certainly reduce emissions. The importance of efficientwater management also needs to be highlighted given the factthat some parts of the world are going to encounter seriousproblems with water supply. We will have to move to a farmore efficient system of water resource management and theuse of water-efficient technologies in agriculture, as severalcountries in the world use 80 per cent of their water supply foragriculture alone.270