Is COP26 our last chance to save the planet?

Cli­mate change is clear­ly an exis­ten­tial threat to human­i­ty. Through green­house gas emis­sions, we have increased the aver­age tem­per­a­ture of the plan­et by 1.2C. The cur­rent cli­mate poli­cies adopt­ed across the globe have put us on a path to a 2.7C increase. Clear­ly the cur­rent poli­cies are not suf­fi­cient and we have to do more.

This makes COP26 par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant. Why? Because accord­ing to the Paris agree­ment, all coun­tries must tight­en their cli­mate com­mit­ments and roadmaps every five years as part of their nation­al­ly deter­mined con­tri­bu­tions (NDC). It is these com­bined roadmaps that deter­mine whether we achieve the goals of the Paris agree­ment or not. COP26 is our best chance this decade to moti­vate coun­tries, com­pa­nies and cit­i­zens to play their part in ensur­ing that our plan­et is both live­able and afford­able for us, our chil­dren and future gen­er­a­tions.

Reduc­ing ener­gy demand and tran­si­tion­ing to green ener­gy sources in build­ings and homes is fun­da­men­tal to the achieve­ment of cli­mate goals. Build­ings are respon­si­ble for 28% of CO2 emis­sions, while build­ing mate­ri­als and con­struc­tion are respon­si­ble for an addi­tion­al 10%. Yet, the major­i­ty of cli­mate roadmaps – the NDCs men­tioned pre­vi­ous­ly – do not spec­i­fy decar­bon­i­sa­tion tar­gets for the sec­tor or for the green­ing of heat­ing ener­gy car­ri­ers.

As a provider of heat­ing and cool­ing solu­tions, Viess­mann has a cen­tral role to play in accel­er­at­ing the trans­for­ma­tion towards a net-zero build­ing envi­ron­ment. This is the rea­son behind our full com­mit­ment to COP. We are send­ing a wake-up call to pol­i­cy mak­ers: it is a mat­ter of urgency that we give spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion to build­ings. We are also, of course, play­ing our part. We have just com­mit­ted to reduc­ing our own absolute emis­sions by 75% by 2030 com­pared to 2005 lev­els.

The key to achiev­ing this net zero future can be sum­marised in four words: peo­ple, tech­nol­o­gy, finance and labour.

People

A net-zero build­ing envi­ron­ment is first and fore­most a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve the lives and health of mil­lions of peo­ple. In the wake of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, peo­ple are much more sen­si­tive to the state of their homes – how light, noise lev­els, air qual­i­ty, tem­per­a­ture or mould affect their health and well­be­ing.

The aware­ness and will­ing­ness to invest in bet­ter homes has nev­er been high­er. With the right pol­i­cy frame­work, we can cre­ate the invest­ment cer­tain­ty for com­pa­nies to meet that demand. Afford­abil­i­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty are crit­i­cal to secure the buy-in to the ener­gy tran­si­tion.

The city of Liv­er­pool, for exam­ple, is run­ning a healthy homes pro­gramme that sets a bench­mark for trans­for­ma­tion­al poli­cies: link­ing health care with home ren­o­va­tion pro­grammes. Pro­sumer mod­els, such as self-con­sump­tion mod­els around pho­to­voltaics, heat pumps and elec­tric stor­age, will also help to involve peo­ple and even cre­ate a new sense of cohe­sion with­in ener­gy com­mu­ni­ties. There are many oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Technology

Cli­mate solu­tions already exist to deliv­er a net zero build­ing envi­ron­ment: heat pumps, renew­able-ready boil­ers, hybrid heat­ing sys­tems using green elec­tric­i­ty and green gas­es, solar pho­to­volta­ic, solar ther­mal and dis­trict heat­ing. Suc­cess will build on two trends: the increased elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of heat­ing sys­tems fed by green elec­tric­i­ty and the sup­ply of green fuels, such as hydro­gen.

Hydro­gen in home heat­ing will be instru­men­tal in deal­ing with the high sea­son­al­i­ty of home heat­ing demand, par­tic­u­lar­ly in win­ter when there is increased demand but often lit­tle sun or wind. In short, it will reduce ener­gy sys­tems costs, secure ener­gy sup­ply and add one more option to decar­bonise heat­ing in build­ings, even if it is used in small­er quan­ti­ties.

Smart homes will also help opti­mise ener­gy con­sump­tion. For exam­ple when some­one leaves their home, their intel­li­gent home ener­gy man­age­ment sys­tem could reduce ener­gy usage until they return or decide to heat their home using off-peak pow­er. A home heat­ing sys­tem could dynam­i­cal­ly choose from a range of ener­gy tar­iffs and there­fore save the con­sumer mon­ey, while main­tain­ing the same lev­el of com­fort for them and their fam­i­ly and ensur­ing the low­est lev­el of CO2 emis­sions.

Financing

The largest financ­ing gap for the achieve­ment of cli­mate goals lies in build­ings. To look at it anoth­er way, there is a huge mar­ket for the financ­ing com­mu­ni­ty. The val­ue of the Euro­pean mort­gage mar­ket is equal to more than half the EU’s GDP. Most ener­gy ren­o­va­tion hap­pens approx­i­mate­ly one to three years after pur­chas­ing, which shows how much of a game-chang­ing role banks can play in increas­ing ener­gy-ren­o­va­tion rates.

There is a huge poten­tial to grasp, by max­imis­ing syn­er­gies between the mort­gage mar­ket and the con­struc­tion and ener­gy ren­o­va­tion mar­kets. Pub­lic sub­si­dies are espe­cial­ly effec­tive in accel­er­at­ing the mod­erni­sa­tion of heat­ing sys­tems.

Labour

Cli­mate poli­cies can cre­ate more and high­er qual­i­fied jobs. How­ev­er, skilled installers, plumbers and trades­peo­ple are already in short sup­ply. We need a strong labour pact to attract new pro­fes­sion­als and train peo­ple at scale – a clear pri­or­i­ty for pol­i­cy mak­ers and indus­try. As an equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­er, we help to alle­vi­ate the pres­sures on labour by pro­vid­ing plug and play mod­erni­sa­tion solu­tions that reduce instal­la­tion time and com­plex­i­ty. At the Viess­mann Acad­e­my, we also train more than 130,000 peo­ple per year.

With the sup­port of peo­ple, tech­nol­o­gy, financ­ing and a skilled labour force, we can embrace the tran­si­tion to clean­er tech­nolo­gies. That will lead to a health­i­er world that not only can we be proud to hand to our chil­dren and future gen­er­a­tions, but that we can live in safe­ly and afford­ably today.

To find out more please vis­it viessmann.co.uk/lastchance

Pro­mot­ed by Viess­mann