Who is innovating to combat climate change?

As a Dutchman who has spent most of the past five years living in the UK, I confess to being one of those "outsiders" identified by the BBC, who are puzzled by the British obsession with talking about the weather. (If you need to be convinced, they cited some research in which 94% of British respondents said they had talked about it during the past six hours, while 38% said they had done so in the past 60 minutes. That’s a lot of weather observations.)

It might be that my time as a UK resident has rubbed off however. I found myself following updates about the unseasonal weather conditions that have made their presence felt across northern Europe recently.

All joking aside, the volume of reports has been surprising – and alarming. Torrential downpours and flash floods are not what we expect in our corner of the globe at this time of year. And, perhaps inevitably, there has been a resurgence of claims, and counter-claims, about severe weather being linked to overall climate change.

Whatever the truth of that may be, there is no doubt that changes are happening. We have all seen images of the diminishing ice caps and heard about rising temperatures. In the past week it was reported that carbon dioxide levels in the Antarctic have reached 400 parts per million (ppm). To put this in context, before the Industrial Revolution they were between 280 and 300ppm.

I’m not an expert here by any means, but I am concerned about the future of our planet. As I wrote about previously, I’m interested in the new solutions that could potentially help. There is no "one size fits all" approach, of course. At any one time we can be seeing drought, soaring temperatures, wildfires and the type of widespread rainfall and flooding I mentioned, spread across the globe.

Here are some of the innovations that I think are worth knowing more about.

1. Flood protection in Tokyo

This is actually a couple of years old now, but is worth a mention. I wonder how many visitors to Tokyo are aware that beneath their feet lies a mammoth underground system of shafts and channels, like something out of a James Bond movie? Its purpose is to make sure that excessive surface water, for example from heavy rainfall, is directed away from the city’s urban areas and channeled into surrounding rivers. It’s one of the most ambitious works of engineering that I have ever come across.

2. Solar-powered soccer in Lagos

Solar energy solutions are already finding widespread success across east Africa, but are at an earlier stage of development in the west. This facility in Lagos was launched as a collaboration between Shell, the musician Akon and UK start-up Pavegen. It uses not only solar power, but also harvests the kinetic energy used by the players during a match. Pitch tiles that capture the kinetic energy from footfall generate electricity that can power low voltage systems, like streetlights, or be stored for later use.

3. Finding water wasters with IBM’s Watson

If you are a regular reader of my posts, you will already know that I’m a fan of Watson, which, having beaten the winners of quiz show Jeopardy! and helped treat patients with conditions like diabetes, is now being used in collaboration with OmniEarth, an environmental analysis organisation. In this case, the computer is being trained to look for how healthy or green an area is, track how much water is available and identify where it is being wasted, either through bad practices or accidents such as leaks. It’s hoped that the solution will help save water in California, which has been in a drought for almost five years.

It's early days with many of these solutions, but I am heartened to find more and more evidence of technology being developed to help improve our environment and tackle serious problems like drought, lack of power and flooding. I hope to see this trend continue.

Photo credit: Asian Development Bank