Rt Hon Chris Skidmore OBE is the UK’s former Energy Minister and Chair of the UK Net Zero Review. He is also a Senior Adviser for the Emissions Capture Company.
COP28 marks an important moment for climate policy. For the first time, a Global Stocktake will demonstrate how far countries need to go to achieve their climate commitments. The focus must now be rigorously on implementation and delivery of not just how we can achieve net zero by 2050, but crucially, what we can do now to halve emissions by 2030. While there will be welcome commitments to expand renewable power, we cannot ignore the fact that what matters is delivering real term, real time emissions reductions now.
As the UK Minister who signed our commitment to net zero into law, and who recently published a 520 page report for the UK government on how to achieve net zero more effectively, I recognise that there are many challenges to immediate deployment of low carbon technologies. Some offer much promise, including hydrogen and Carbon Capture, yet many of these technologies are not ready to be deployed at scale to make a difference by 2030. Many require large capital investment costs, and can be hindered by the regulatory and planning requirements for large scale infrastructure developments. Of course they are needed, but we cannot wait around for them to come on-stream.
It’s why I have also been focusing my attention on organisations and companies that can deliver on the ground, today, before 2030. The Emissions Capture Company is one such organisation, that seeks to reduce industrial emissions from food and drink manufacturers. They do so, and have been doing so at Nestle in Praetoria, through their WhiteBox- a modular, small and low-cost unit that captures emissions and converting carbon dioxide into bicarbonate of soda. The technology can be commissioned and operational within 60 days, without major interruptions to a plant’s operation. The bicarbonate of soda produced is then up to twenty-two times less carbon intensive than bicarbonate of soda that can be bought through traditional processes currently on the open market. For those food and drink companies that are seeking to meet their net zero commitments by reducing their emissions, and who use bicarbonate of soda elsewhere in their supply chains, it is a double win win solution: reducing their scope 1, and their scope 3 emissions by using this recycled product.
For myself, the opportunity that the Emissions Capture Company has created is to shift the narrative around net zero, in much the same way I sought to do with my Mission Zero report. To demonstrate that decarbonisation doesn’t have to be a cost, but can be an economic, investment opportunity with a realisable rate of return. For those food and drink companies now seeking to use the Emission Capture Company’s services, they can have confidence that they are directly reducing their emissions at source, rather than risking making net zero commitments on the back of carbon credits. They also have a product which can be used: in this case, utilising carbon dioxide isn’t pushing the problem elsewhere, it is ensuring that less carbon dioxide is needed to produce a product that they would need anyhow. This is a real term solution that has the potential to be expanded into other industries that want to decarbonise but are worried about the cost, and the time it might take. The Emissions Capture Company doesn’t need state handouts, or isn’t dependent also on waiting around for a carbon price to rise to make their business model work. This model of decarbonisation as a service, with a valuable product able to be used at the end of it is exactly the kind of innovation that can help us- or in this case the food and drink industry- meet our climate commitments and emissions reduction requirements not in the distant future, but now, in the present. Ultimately, when we look back on whether we were able to limit global warming in the time required, we need to be able to state confidently that we chose the most effective pathways that had the chance to deliver real results. In many senses, net zero will succeed if it works with, and not against, the needs of business and markets. I would say myself that net zero will only succeed if it creates new low carbon markets, that work for business and consumers. We do not have the time to waste, which is why we must empower those businesses and companies that can deliver not tomorrow, but today.
