Some text about sustainability that sits on two lines

Sustainable Mobility

One of the greatest challenges in tackling climate change is decarbonising the transport sector, responsible for around a quarter of total emissions. This challenge has been met by rapidly improving technology and ambitious policy announcements, which have been critical in stimulating the mobility transition in major markets.

Autonomous driving, connectivity, electrification, and shared mobility are just some of the disruptive dimensions that will be crucial to revolutionising modern day mobility, and this transition has proven remarkably resilient, with electric vehicles in particular riding the storm of COVID-19 to defy expectations in a bleak overall automotive industry outlook

The new automotive industry in particular has seen exciting transformation.

The Hydrogen Economy

Fuel cell and hydrogen technologies have been widely suggested as the future to wide scale decarbonisation. Aviation, shipping and heavy industry are areas that so far have remained among the most difficult areas of the economy to decarbonise, whilst also being among the most carbon intensive. Hydrogen is perhaps the only power source that could realistically replace fossil fuel technologies in these sectors.

Hydrogen promises to be an extremely versatile tool in the race to decarbonise. It can be used to store energy for an unlimited time, is light enough to be stored on aircraft (unlike electric batteries), can be physically transported like a fossil fuel and is an energy source capable of coupling the various sectors. It also can be used to make synthetic fuels that can replace fossil fuels as a feedstock, for example to make plastics. A further advantage is that it can be used as a commodity that can be traded internationally, in much the same way as fossil fuels are currently.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Carbon capture, utilisation and storage, or CCUS, is an important emissions reduction technology that can be applied across the energy system. CCUS technologies involve the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fuel combustion or industrial processes, the transport of this CO2 via ship or pipeline, and either its use as a resource to create valuable products or services or its permanent storage deep underground in geological formations. CCUS technologies also provide the foundation for carbon removal or “negative emissions” when the CO2 comes from bio-based processes or directly from the atmosphere.

The world is on course to sail past the recognized “safe” level of 2 degrees Celsius of warming to as much as 3 degrees Celsius, according to the latest Wood Mackenzie Energy Transition Outlook. The Paris Agreement aims to limit warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius” and ideally to limit it 1.5 degrees. It is thus not enough to decarbonise energy and transport systems, and CCUS must play a crucial role in avoiding potentially devastating levels of anthropogenic warming.