IEEE has enhanced its standing as a trusted, impartial authority on the function of expertise in climate change mitigation and adaption. Final 12 months it turned the primary technical affiliation to be invited to a U.N. Conference of the Parties on Climate Change.
IEEE representatives participated in a number of periods at COP30, held from 11 to twenty November in Belém, Brazil. Greater than 56,000 delegates attended, together with policymakers, technologists, and representatives from trade, finance, and improvement companies.
Following the convention, IEEE helped host the selective International Symposium on Achieving a Sustainable Climate. The International Telecommunication Union and IEEE hosted ISASC on 16 and 17 December at ITU’s headquarters in Geneva. Among the many greater than 100 individuals who attended have been U.N. company representatives, diplomats, senior leaders from academia, and specialists from authorities, trade, nongovernment organizations, and requirements improvement our bodies.
Power and energy knowledgeable Saifur Rahman, the 2023 IEEE president, led IEEE’s delegation at each occasions. Rahman is the quick previous chair of IEEE’s Technology for a Sustainable Climate Matrix Organization, which coordinates, communicates, and amplifies the group’s efforts.
IEEE’s evolving function at COP
IEEE first attended a COP in 2021.
“Over successive COPs, IEEE’s function has advanced from contributing particular person technical periods to being acknowledged as a trusted accomplice in local weather motion,” Rahman famous in a summary of COP30. “There may be [a] rising demand for engineering perception, not simply to debate applied sciences however [also] to assist design pathways for deployment, capacity-building, and long-term resilience.”
Becoming a member of Rahman at COP30 have been IEEE Fellow Claudio Canizares and IEEE Member Filipe Emídio Tôrres.
Canizares is a professor {of electrical} and computer engineering on the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada, and the chief director of the college’s sustainable energy institute.
Tôrres chairs the IEEE Centro-Norte Brasil Section (Brazil Chapter). An entrepreneur and a former professor, he’s pursuing a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering on the University of Brasilia. He additionally represented the IEEE Young Professionals group whereas attending the convention.
Within the Engineering for Climate Resilience: Water Planning, Energy Transition, Biodiversity session, Rahman confirmed a video from his 2024 go to to Shennongjia, China, the place he monitored a clean energy mission designed to guard endangered snub-nosed monkeys from human encroachment. The mission integrates renewable energy, which helps protect the forest and its wildlife.
Rahman additionally chaired a session on the Sustainable Development Goal Pavilion on balancing decarbonization efforts between industrialized and rising economies.
Moreover, he participated in a joint panel dialogue hosted by IEEE and the World Federation of Engineering Organizations on engineering methods for local weather resilience, together with energy transition and biodiversity.
Rahman, Canizares, and Tôrres took half in a session on clean-tech solutions for a sustainable climate, hosted by the International Youth Nuclear Congress. The matters included fossil gas–free electrical energy for communications in distant areas and reasonably priced electrical energy options for off-grid areas.
The three additionally joined a number of panels organized by the IYNC that addressed local weather resilience, profession pathways in sustainability, and a mentoring program.
“Over successive COPs, IEEE’s function has advanced from contributing particular person technical periods to being acknowledged as a trusted accomplice in local weather motion.” —Saifur Rahman, 2023 IEEE president
The IYNC hosted the Voices of Transition: Including Pathways to a Clean Energy Future session, for which Tôrres and Rahman have been panelists. They mentioned the necessity to embody underrepresented and marginalized teams, which frequently get missed in initiatives that convert communities to renewable vitality.
Rahman, Canizares, and Tôrres visited the COP Village, the place they met a number of of the 5,000 Indigenous leaders taking part within the convention and mentioned potential partnerships and collaborations. Local weather change has made the land the place the Indigenous folks reside extra inclined to extreme droughts and wildfires, significantly within the Amazon area.
Rahman and Tôrres took a discipline journey to the Federal University of Para, the place they met a number of college members and college students and toured the LASSE engineering lab.
A significant expertise
Tôrres, who says representing IEEE at COP30 was transformative, wrote an in depth report concerning the occasion.
“The expertise reaffirmed my perception that engineering and expertise, when mixed with respect for cultural variety, can play a vital function in shaping a extra sustainable and equitable world,” he wrote. “It highlighted the significance of mixing cutting-edge technological options with Indigenous knowledge and cultural data to deal with the local weather disaster.”
Rahman and Canizares give an outline of their COP30 experiences in an IEEE webinar.
“IEEE has a spot on the desk,” Rahman says within the video. “We wish to showcase outdoors our consolation zone what IEEE can do. We go to all these international occasions in order that our identify turns into a well-recognized time period. We’re the primary technical affiliation group ever to go to COP and discuss engineering.”
Canizares added that IEEE is now collaborating intently with the United Nations.
“This is a crucial interplay. And I believe, transferring ahead, IEEE will grow to be extra related, significantly within the context of expertise deployment,” he mentioned. “As governments begin expertise deployments, they may see IEEE as a supplier of options.”
ISASC takeaways
Rahman was the final chair of the ISASC occasion, which targeted on the supply and deployment of fresh vitality. Among the many presenters have been IEEE members together with Canizares, Paulina Chan, Surekha Deshmukh, Ashutosh Dutta, Tariq Durrani, Samina Husain, Bruce Kraemer, Bruno Meyer, Carlo Alberto Nucci, and Seizo Onoe.
Periods have been organized round six themes: vitality transition, data and communication expertise, financing, case research, technical standards, and public-private collaborations. An in depth report consists of the discussions, insights, and alternatives recognized all through ISASC.
Listed here are some key takeaways.
- Though the expertise exists to transition to renewable vitality, most power grid programs are usually not prepared. Deployment is more and more constrained by transmission bottlenecks, interconnection delays, allowing challenges, and system flexibility. There’s additionally a expertise scarcity.
- Power transition pathways have to be region-specific and will think about native sources, social situations, funding alternatives, and improvement priorities.
- Info and communication applied sciences are central to climate mitigation options, regardless of rising issues about their environmental influence. Regardless that the applied sciences are utilized in helpful methods, equivalent to early-warning programs for natural disasters and sensible water administration, additionally they are driving the fast development of data centers for artificial intelligence functions—which has elevated vitality costs and pushed up water demand.
- Technical requirements are a way of accelerating adoption, interoperability, and belief in green technology. There must be larger coordination amongst requirements improvement organizations, significantly on the convergence of vitality programs, data applied sciences, and AI. Fragmented requirements hinder interoperability. The shortage of technical requirements is a significant constraint on mission financing, limiting buyers’ confidence and slowing expertise deployment.
- Coaching and outreach efforts are essential for efficiently implementing requirements, particularly in growing areas. IEEE’s international membership and regional sections could be vital channels to deal with the wants.
A expertise evaluation software
As a part of ISASC, IEEE introduced a expertise evaluation software prototype. The net-based platform is designed to assist policymakers, practitioners, and buyers evaluate expertise choices towards local weather objectives.
The software can run a comparative evaluation of sustainable local weather applied sciences and combine publicly accessible, expert-validated information.
IEEE may help the world meet its objectives
The ISASC report concluded that by connecting engineering experience with real-world deployment challenges, IEEE is working to translate international local weather objectives into measurable actions.
The discussions highlighted that the trail ahead lies much less in inventing new applied sciences and extra in aligning programs to ship ones that exist already.
Summaries of COP30 and ISASC can be found on the IEEE Technology for a Sustainable Climate website.
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