Carbon Challenge - Call for Action

This month, P?yry Plc celebrated the 60th anniversary and proudly hosted over 300 industry leaders and world class experts at the Carbon Clash event, to debate low carbon solutions and contribute towards the battle against Climate Change.

For me, our Carbon Clash discussions confirmed existing understanding and revealed new perspectives. Here is my list of 10 key insights, which ultimately must lead to action!

10 Carbon Clash insights that are leading me to action:

1. Significantly reducing CO2 emissions is possible, however it is very urgent that we all step up our action

2. The 2020 target to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% must be a shared responsibility, as we only have the potential to reach it if we join up the right experts and decision makers to get an overall global strategy in place

3. Europe has the thought leadership on reduction of CO2 emissions, however with only 9% of the global CO2 output we will need to extend our expertise to support the rest of the globe in order to reach the target

4. Effective climate action requires an holistic view, with innovators, business leaders, politicians and the public all pulling in the same direction

5. Our industry leaders agree that political decision makers and companies are mostly responsible for reducing CO2. In 2019, I will actively seek cooperation with other decision makers to understand how we can work together to effect change

6. Our industry leaders already possess the expertise to create big change and we have better technology and knowledge than ever before. Let us discuss tangible ways to move from theory to practice. Current plastic production of 330 Mt equate for 825 Mt of CO2 e. IF we can substitute plastic we make another big move. Focus on circular economy.

7. Investors are ready to put their money into new ideas and new inventions, as the benefits are clear, however we can only fully unlock investment into cleaner solutions by having agreements in place to secure profit, or at least insure against loss

8. Electric vehicles are now seen as a realistic alternative, despite higher investment costs. Are there lessons we can take from this success and apply to other areas?

9. We urgently need to reduce our dependency on fossil-based plastics and we can because the options for bio-based solutions are now becoming reality

10. Carbon is typically seen as a huge business challenge, however it can also be an opportunity. By putting a price on CO2 we can create a new market mechanism to drive change and a market shift towards a new economy based on CO2

and finally did you know that we could solve 20% of the carbon challenge with re-forestation of the forests reduced since 1990 - the size of South Africa. We see many global leaders gearing up there like New Zealand's dedication to plant 100 million trees per year over 10 years. More will follow.

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