No fancy new tech will be needed to reach net zero emissions by 2050 the Climate Change Commission promised when it delivered Ināia Tonu Nei last June – its advice on how to deliver a low-emissions future for New Zealand.
“The technology and the tools Aotearoa needs to reach its climate targets exist today,” the commission advised the government.
There would be no reliance on silver-bullet solutions, no vaccines to reduce cows’ emissions, and no devices to suck carbon out of the atmosphere.
That was a pragmatic move by the commission, but it also gave licence to a government already ambivalent about technology and innovation in general, to overlook the role tech will play this decade in cutting emissions.
“The high-tech sector was not a huge feature of the Emissions Reduction Plan,” climate change minister James Shaw admitted last week.
That’s despite many submissions from tech companies last year highlighting the role technology could play in accelerating emissions reductions.
Big investment needed
“I think that was an oversight,” Shaw added, ironically making the comment at the launch of a Spark-commissioned report by sustainability consultancy Thinkstep.
The report found that the uptake of digital technologies in transport, industry, and agriculture could cut 7.2 million tonnes of carbon-equivalent emissions, 42% of the 2030 emissions reduction target we have, relative to our 2019 footprint.
That’s an ambitious scenario that would need billions to be invested across the board, automating factory processes, rolling out telehealth services on a large scale, and speeding up our electric vehicle uptake.
But even half those savings would have an impact. These changes are realistic to achieve, with existing technology.
The role of tech in enabling emissions reductions is well recognized.
Peer-reviewed studies suggest the increased use of information and communication technologies can deliver direct emissions reductions of 15-20% by 2030. That’s up to 12 gigatonnes of CO2 that wouldn’t be produced.
So, tech companies have descended on Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt this week alongside climate diplomats and environmental activists for the COP27 climate change conference.
Of course, they see it as a business opportunity, but they can help deliver tangible emissions reductions to supplement the more challenging task of decarbonising dirty industries and moving away from coal, oil, and gas for energy production.
Swedish mobile equipment maker Ericsson says: “The digital revolution may be the biggest wildcard in the economic transformation. It can influence whether we end up on a 1.5°C planet or a world 3-4°C warmer, Hothouse Earth.”
In its Exponential Roadmap, it outlines how the broad uptake of digitised logistics and shipping, automated energy systems in buildings, mobility as a service, autonomous and electric vehicles, and other digital-centric technologies could bring major emissions savings.
Thinkstep is actually relatively conservative in its ambitions for technology, with the biggest area of emissions savings (2.9 megatonnes) able to be achieved in transport, and largely through the sort of sustained uptake of hybrid working we saw during the pandemic.
NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller helpfully suggested this week: “There is a strong need for emissions reduction technology roadmaps for NZ, much like those seen in other jurisdictions like the UK, NSW and Denmark.
“This will help align the best types of technology investments and accelerate private investment in critical technologies.”
A tech roadmap for net-zero
A coherent plan to deploy technology in the climate fight would be useful.
The UK, for instance, has its Net Zero Research & Innovation Framework, which outlines the areas it will focus on to achieve its net zero targets, from hydrogen production to industrial automation.
It also outlines the funding mechanisms that will support innovation to reduce emissions.
Our own efforts, in comparison, are piecemeal and fragmented.
One urgent tech-related challenge that needs to be addressed is supporting farmers to begin the farm-level emissions pricing they will have to do from 2025.
A $380 million funding package will pay for “new tools, technology, and practices” to help farmers make the looming transition. But we have left this very late.
We need to set up dedicated software tools, sensor technology and infrastructure to manage and audit the data collected from farmers.
Then farmers must be trained to use the new tools. This has not been done anywhere else in the world and we have less than two years to equip them to accurately measure their emissions so they can be priced.
The government should move quickly to address the oversight Shaw has owned up to.
We need to develop a roadmap outlining how technology and innovation, supported by our research sector, can be used to tackle emissions reductions across the economy by 2030.
Originally published on BusinessDesk.co.nz
Photo credit: Markus Spiske, Pexel
PETER GRIFFIN 