Saving the planet was never dependent on Cop conference agreements but on whether technology can de-carbonise the world in time at an affordable price.
I went to Cop27. The public is excluded but authoritarian regimes do not know what to make of live ex-ministers. The Egyptian government decided I must be important. VIPs are never asked to show their credentials but are shown to the front of the queue.
The politicians at Cop27 were arguing about money, not saving the planet.
Most of the 45,000 Cop27 delegates were climate lobbyists and consultants. They earn their living from the climate crisis continuing.
At the fringe of Cop27 were those with ideas for decarbonising the planet and those with finance for projects. The proposals ranged from the wacky to cutting-edge science.
Those fringe Cop meetings made me realise the massive global effort to discover affordable ways to de-carbonise.
Last week’s Economist magazine published its own modelling that found that the Cop models underestimate the impact of technology and overestimate the cost.
The magazine says the Paris Agreement’s target of 1.5% temperature rise was never achievable, but 2% is. The article cites Wright’s law that says every doubling of production sees unit costs fall and gives the example of the tumbling cost of solar panels and batteries.
The sign on our local school’s fence says: “Fibre is coming”. Vitruvius explained in around 20 BC how steam could power an engine. It took 1700 years before Newcomen built the first piston steam engine.
In 1966, Charles Kao and George Hockham published an academic article explaining how glass could at the speed of light transmit enormous quantities of information.
Less than 60 years later glass fibre will reach rural Rotoma.
Three years ago, at no extra cost, Chorus tripled the speed of its standard fibre offering.
It is understandable why climate models underestimate the speed of change and the cost reductions.
Fibre will be transformational. Today I am on the wrong side of the digital divide. I cannot send or receive bulky attachments. To send urgent documents I travel 43km to Rotorua.
Keen trout fishermen will move their business to their holiday homes at Lake Rotoma. I know businesses that have their worldwide headquarters in Gisborne and the branch office in America. With fibre they can locate their company anywhere and the owners are keen surfers.
Fibre is essential for artificial intelligence, AI, that requires large amounts of data.
AI and fibre could create for every pupil their own avatar tutor giving individual coaching.
AI and fibre will allow instant access to medical advice.
AI and fibre will accelerate the technical breakthroughs for de-carbonisation.
The first article in the Herald was about concrete, the world’s building material. The making of cement is estimated to create 8% of global warming.
A New Zealand company, Neocrete, announced its pilot plant is about to make concrete replacing high-emission cement with low-emission volcanic ash, of which New Zealand has abundance. The founder, Matt Kennedy-Good, says his company’s mission is to reduce worldwide carbon emissions by 1%.
Nuclear fusion is the holy grail. Fusing two hydrogen atoms to produce harmless and useful helium and enormous quantities of affordable cheap clean energy. It has always been 30 years away.
OpenStar Technologies, a Kiwi startup, has in just two years and only $10 million created nuclear fusion plasma, a super-hot cloud of ionised gas. It is an important step towards creating temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Celsius required to fuse atoms.
Founder and CEO Ratu Mataira says “this is like humans discovering fire again”. He says “I think a reactor will hopefully produce electricity sometime in the 2030s.” It would be a climate game change.
In contrast, ITER, the experimental reactor being built since 2013 in France by 35 countries at an estimated total cost of possibly $112 billion is yet to achieve plasma.
I am sure without fibre access neither of these breakthroughs would have happened in New Zealand.
The John Key government’s decision to partner with the private sector to roll out fibre to 87% of the country may be that government’s most significant achievement. The Jacinda Ardern government continued the rollout proving what bipartisan infrastructure projects can achieve.
Today New Zealand is a leader in broadband connectivity, with average download speeds faster than Australia, the UK and Germany.
Fibre overcomes the tyranny of distance and has enabled two New Zealand experiments that may save the planet.
Only our imagination limits what AI combined with fibre can achieve.
