‘Net Zero aims must start here’
Patrick Harnett, senior programme director, said: “We have the technology now, the main thing is we have to put it into practice. We need to put it out there, and get it built as fast as we can. We have more time now than we ever will have, we have got to start now.
“Some of the biggest challenges are around policy - we have got the technology, we need the policy to make it happen.
“It would be great to have the Glasgow Agreement rather than the Paris Agreement - a new commitment to carbon reduction.
“Our CEO, Mads Nipper, is there to talk about the transition we have been through and I’d like to see enlightenment, understanding of how it can be done, then some concrete policy changes throughout the world that can do it.
“We have the technology, we just need the change of policy to make it happen. Also, financially, we need access to the money to make the transition, and it needs to come fast.”
For Prof Dan Parsons, director of University of Hull’s Energy and Environment Institute, it presents an opportunity to drive fundamental change.
He said: “The biggest problem we have is the systematic change we need to address, as a global community, and that’s why COP 26 is so important, as big policy levers can be pulled and have an effect - carbon accounting, new economic models to drive change, subsidies instead of going to oil and gas go to renewable energy they are the big changes we need to see.
“The Humber has a massive role to play in this, all the exciting things happening and additional investment.
“The biggest offshore wind farms, the reduction in cost green hydrogen, it is all part of the mix that makes the Humber unique.
“I get really excited about green hydrogen as that’s a solution that really is Net Zero, and there’s a role for sequestration and storing carbon.
“I want to see a whole set of legally binding carbon credit agreements, the ‘Glasgow Agreement.’
“We have to halve our CO2 emissions this decade, we are not even near it.
“It is like having a bath 90 per cent full and still turning the taps on. We need to turn the taps off and pull the plug out, that’s where we are.”
And while a select few leaders will have the immediate chance, Prof Parsons said we can all have our say, with the application of political pressure even more important than trimming individual carbon footprints.
“We all have a role to play and the biggest role we can play is lobbying government for the systematic change we need,” he said.
One fresh voice on that was Amy Meek, co-founder of Kids Against Plastic, and member of Prof Parsons’ youth advisory board.
The 18-year-old said: “We have got to all stop talking about it and do it. COP has been going for longer than I have been alive, and I look at what has come from it and we have the Paris Climate Agreement, and you could argue it didn’t go far enough and is not implemented properly.
“I want an ambitious roadmap, we need to see what is being decided there so we can all play our part, hold to account and make it happen.”
Underlining the urgency, Liz Barber, chief executive of Yorkshire Water, had told how the utility giant was dealing with the impact of climate change now.
“It is not coming, we are in it,” she said, reflecting on the direct impact of flooding and soil movement as a result of the building intensity of downpours.
“In the past five years we have had several storms and a drought. We are in it, we are having to adapt and meet Net Zero targets at the same time.”