Is net zero by 2050 practicable?

Kelly Report – click to view

An interesting report sponsored by GWPF was produced by Professor Kelly. While casting doubt on some of the climate science, he sets such doubts aside and examines – with a broad brush – what would be required to achieve net zero carbon in the UK by 2050. Click on the picture on the right to access the full report.

Michael Kelly ended his academic career as the inaugural Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge. He is a trustee of the GWPF. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

According to GWPF, “The Global Warming Policy Foundation is an all-party and non-party think tank and a registered educational charity which, while openminded on the contested science of global warming, is deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated.
Our main focus is to analyse global warming policies and their economic and other implications. Our aim is to provide the most robust and reliable economic analysis and advice. Above all we seek to inform the media, politicians and the public, in a newsworthy way, on the subject in general and on the misinformation to which they are all too frequently being subjected at the present time.”

It is a most interesting report. Of course one could quibble over detail, but the broad thrusts of the report are clear:-

  • There is insufficient time to achieve net zero by 2050 (we should have started in 2000)
  • There are possibly insufficient material resources (mainly minerals) that can be made available at the rate required
  • There is insufficient time to recruit and train an NHS size workforce to implement the changes in the UK
  • There is unlikely to be public buy-in.
  • There is no roadmap to success, just an aspiration
  • The organizational and financial resources at national and transnational scale to support the non-existent roadmap have not been developed
  • Unless there is a worldwide commitment then action by the UK, however commendable, will be ineffective
  • If we cannot make mitigation work, then we will have to rely on adaptation to inevitable climate changes (though even that seems to be a fast-moving target!)

I particularly liked the comment “having the cars and heat-pumps without the green electricity is the height of folly”

It is freely admitted that the report ignores the impacts of aviation and shipping. Maybe I can throw some useful light on the latter.

[To be fair to UK government and the shipping and ports industries, the Government produced the Clean Maritime Plan in mid  2019. It was of course, severely dented by the covid pandemic, so there are (so far) few deliverables, but the plan has survived in many ways. It does start to address some of the more intractable issues such as funding the transition to a new state. If anything can be salvaged from the wreck described above, it will have its beginnings in the work being done. For more detail, click here ]

A Hampshire Case Study

Some time ago, UN upgraded the net zero target to 2050. At the same time, a local environmental forum in Southampton started to campaign for provision of shore power to ships in the port to reduce pollution in the city. I decided to examine the reality using my environmental experience from my days with Associated British Ports. The detail can be seen by clicking here.

Some comments on Net Zero with respect to the shipping Industry

When I looked at this some time ago, I was surprised to find that much of the technology to achieve net zero exists, but the commercial. political and financial organisation to get there is weak. For more detail click here

Comment on transport energy (hydrogen/ammonia)

For detailed comments an the use of hydrogen/ammonia fuel cells instead of batteries, click here

Power Generation

The marine environment offer some different opportunities (but with new challenges) for renewable power generation. Tidal and wave power need to be considered.

For more information, click here

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