It is still time to act – now more than ever

Last night, two weeks after its opening, the 27th World Climate Change Conference came to an end. Together for Implementation. Just and Ambitious was the motto of the organizers in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Just, in particular, for those countries that have the least to do with causing climate change and yet suffering particularly severely from it. Ambitious concerning the goal of keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees. The result, reflected in the final communiqué, offers both: light and shade.

Yes, the “Implementation Plan” adopted by the representatives of the 200 countries contains a commitment to the basic climate protection targets and the financing essential for implementation. It reaffirms the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. However, it does not contain any concrete binding commitments. The Loss and Damage Fund, on the other hand, is the first fund to be announced that is intended to provide financial assistance to victims of climate change, particularly in developing countries. However, the concrete form of this has yet to be decided. And the industrialized countries had already promised in Paris to support the developing countries with around 100 billion U.S. dollars annually – so far without a concrete implementation.

COP27 has once again shown how difficult it is to reach joint resolutions. Still, it is much more critical that we translate the resolutions into concrete implementation. Irrespective of whether ambitious or less ambitious, the decisive dimension lies in execution – and this is where all of us have unfortunately mostly failed so far.

However, I am in a more positive mood after COP27. I was able to spend five days on the ground and I have to say that the narrative and the mood are changing to put implementation in the focus.

The narrative is changing – only together can we create progress

Representatives from government, business and society discussed concrete steps for immediate and sustainable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, not against each other, but with each other. What was clear to all of us: by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 43 percent compared to 2019, and by 2050 we must have achieved global greenhouse gas neutrality – otherwise the 1.5-degree target will remain just wishful thinking.

 The five points of action I mentioned two weeks ago as an impulse are:

1.  Expansion of renewables: By 2050, we must expand the share of renewable energies massively worldwide – at least tripled in the USA, quadrupled to tenfold in the Asia-Pacific region compared to 2020, and tripled to fourfold in Europe. We can only achieve this target if the framework conditions are right, regulatory hurdles are removed. And, above all, access to enormous quantities of materials is guaranteed. The state of the European wind industry shows what efforts and support are needed to achieve this. And much work is required here – independently from the COP process.
2. Improve energy efficiency: The continuous increase in energy demand due to economic growth and population increase counteracts all current efforts to reduce emissions. Therefore, the first and most important task is to conserve energy wherever possible. This effort will also require greater electrification of industrial processes or transport and with that also a lot of innovation is needed.
3. Strengthen the electrical grid: The increasing share of renewable energy and increasing electrification require more robust grids – grids that will not only serve an entire country's needs but will also link supply and demand within a region or across regions. For developing countries, however, this is an even more significant challenge. In Africa, many power systems are still known for their frequent outages and grid instabilities – nearly 25% of households in Africa that have access to electricity have power available to them only half the time, occasionally or never.
4. Use the existing infrastructure as a bridge: Amid all of the massive investments we all need to make, we cannot and should not overlook one fact: The existing infrastructure can and should be used – even if it is based on conventional technologies – to bridge the gap. Push for everything you want to have but do not allow the aspiration for new technology to avoid action on the short-term on what you have. We will need to use the existing infrastructure to keep this balance between the security of supply and the sustainability of supply. And we know none of the ones works alone.
5. Get a handle on the supply chain and the necessary minerals: More materials and minerals are needed for the energy transition. A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional vehicle, and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant. Since 2010, the average amount of minerals needed for a new unit of power generation capacity has increased by 50% as the share of renewables in new investments has risen.

It is up to us – the industry has a clear responsibility

In all of this, we as an industry are taking ourselves to the task. With the Alliance for Industrial Decarbonization, IRENA and Siemens Energy have brought together around 30 major industrial companies on COP27 that have pledged to jointly drive forward concrete projects to combat climate change and also to be measured against them.

If business leaders in their field cannot realize jointly fixed goals, how is implementation supposed to work? We must finally understand what sometimes stands in our way and take action. I am deeply convinced that if we do not move the needle in industry, no one else will.

Whether the COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh can be considered a success, an essential milestone in climate history, or rather a failure, is too early to judge today. It depends very much on what we make of it now. We are all – politics, business and society – in the same boat.

Let us work together for a fair, ambitious implementation – now more than ever.