Decarbonisation is hard and now we know why

Science makes you happy - just by revealing facts and dependencies that you almost knew. The facts don't even need to be nice. It's enough, if you can use them in your work. The dependecies can be as appalling as you have been afraid of when discussing them with your colleagues. There is a relief in becoming able to pinpoint them accurately.

Let me give you an example.

In the national hydrogen network of public actors in Finland, we support a multi-stakeholder approach to decarbonisation of industries. One of the first movers is the steel industry. In a scientific analysis I read today, its decarbonisation pathway is described. Different visions for decarbonising steel are first reviewed and then critically assessed.

The same method is applied to four other industries: plastic, paper, meat and milk. In one table (table 1), you can see the similarities and the differences when decarbonising these five production processes. On a very concrete, comprehensible level. It's useful information when we as a network are choosing what to focus on and what not. (Of course, that data set needs to be complemented with decarbonisation pathways for electricity, heat and transportation).

Imagination as the limit

As late as yesterday, we were wondering with a couple of colleagues, how hard it is to do what we know that should be done. How the social and political processes twist facts and logic in incomprehensible ways, so that "development develops" but much slower than necessary and in unpredictable ways.

The authors conclude based on the facts they've just presented, that we seem to proceed in decarbonisation by trying to keep as much as possible as it is. In stead of imagining how needs can be met more directly, more efficiently and more equally through new technologies, we reproduce copies of products we're used to. Focus sharpens on how our daily life is organised, and how we can decarbonise it without needing to change our habits. Our routines. Or tastes. Or anything (else than technologies).

Addressing conflicting needs is easier from an eagle eye view

When we as emotional guardians of status quo are faced with the need to prioritize, which economic sector can make use of which resources and to which extent, development becomes slow. In the midst of it, each of us does our best to contribute to the targets that are set by our respective reference groups. It takes a researcher (or some) to take an eagle eye view and describe how those targets are in tension with each other - and how synergies could be created.

Thank you for that view. Even if it doesn't change the uncomfortable facts, it is comforting to have that place to go to in times of uncertainty and inconvenience.

Thank you also for your closing words about addressing the subject with courage rather than ambition.

The question is perhaps not one of ambition – for there seems to be plenty of that – but of courage. Too often action for decarbonisation is delayed not as a result of overt opposition but as a result of the optimism placed in new technologies or policies that appear to be just around the corner and whose arrival will herald the real momentum for change. In this case, the perfect climate solution appears to be the enemy of the good – we have already been waiting too long for this perfect storm to bring forth the kind of action on climate change the world needs. Replacing this optimistic outlook with a courageous one means imagining that the solutions we already have, here to hand, can be a good enough place to start – that we do not need to wait for new technologies or political commitments, that we can start now. It also takes courage to recognise that as we navigate pathways to decarbonised futures we will need to allow for diverse approaches, to live with imperfect outcomes and be ready to encounter failure as much as we succeed.