Innovators: new climate change technologies needed
Climate change innovators working across Europe with Climate-KIC have responded to the third report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The innovators, who are working on a variety of technologies to help mitigate climate change, have described the report as a timely reminder of the urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through new solutions and to invest accordingly in research.
Holger Wallbaumm, who works on sustainable city initiatives for Climate-KIC and is Professor in Sustainable Building at Climate-KIC partner Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, said: “The IPCC report emphasises once again that cities need to make an important contribution to mitigate our carbon footprints. Current solutions however are often limited to a single sector and to technological approaches which cannot on their own meet the challenges cities face today.”
Adding his thoughts, Jeremy Woods, who works on the bio-economy for Climate-KIC and is lecturer in bioenergy at Climate-KIC partner Imperial College London, said: “Biofuels done right can contribute significantly to sustainable fuel production and decreased greenhouse gas emissions. Given the intense scrutiny biofuel developments are under and the novel monitoring and measuring protocols that have been developed over the last decade, we see good prospects for integrating biofuel systems into agriculture and forestry landscapes in order to stimulate productivity growth, local development and sustainable land-use practices.”
Climate-KIC is Europe’s largest public private innovation partnership focused on mitigating and adapting to climate change. The PPP is partially funded by the European Commission through the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, which has confirmed an initial €63m grant for 2014. Climate-KIC also receives financial and in-kind support from over 200 businesses, universities and public bodies across Europe.
