Welcome to The Engineer's Net Zero week

Whilst many are sceptical that progress will be made, the COP27 climate summit currently underway in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, is widely viewed as the last opportunity for humanity to avert the worst effects of climate change.

And whilst it's down to politicians and world-leaders to agree and set the framework for change, it will be engineers who are at the heart of delivering on whatever pledges and promises are made.

Over the course of the next few days we will be exploring and celebrating the role that engineers across industry are playing in the urgent push to build a cleaner, greener future and avert a climate catastrophe.

As we’ll demonstrate, there are lots of positives. But we’re still a long way from where we need to be. And time is running out. In a chilling update issued last month (October 2022) the UN warned that global failure to deliver on promises made at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference means there is now “no credible pathway” to limiting man-made global warming to 1.5 degrees C.  

Therefore – as we’ll report this week - alongside the technologies for reducing and ultimately eliminating our greenhouse gas emissions, we now also need to be looking at technologies that actively remove CO2 from our atmosphere, systems that repair and rebalance our damaged climate, and even – most damningly of all - technologies and adaptations that enable the poorest people on the planet to live alongside the consequences of climate change.

We have the knowledge, expertise and – to some degree – the will to make all of this happen. What’s now required is joined-up global political leadership that ensures the meaningful deployment of every tool at our disposal.  

You can keep up to date with all of our Net Zero output here and check back to the website daily for fresh content.

Jon Excell - Editor, The Engineer