Episode 2: Liz Allan and Professor Richard Allan – What is Net Zero & how can we make a difference

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

carbon dioxide, atmosphere, net, happening, moving, climate, people, emissions, heating, carbon, electric vehicle infrastructure, important, years, podcast, university, climate change, warming, natural gas, events, bit

SPEAKERS

Liz Allan, Richard Allan

Liz Allan  00:13

Welcome to Electric Evolution with Liz Allan. This podcast is about the journey to a more sustainable future. In order for us to achieve Net Zero, I’ll be discussing a variety of topics with experts in their field in order to educate and increase our knowledge of green energy, electric vehicles and the electric vehicle infrastructure. So whether you’re an individual wants to make a small business or corporate, this podcast is just for you.

Liz Allan  00:44

Okay, so on electric evolution today, I actually have Professor Richard Allan, who is a professor of climate science. At the University of Reading, and just happens to be my husband. So welcome. I’m going to call you Richard on here. Welcome and thank you for coming on.

Richard Allan  01:07

Nice to see you.

Liz Allan  01:09

It’s slightly weird because we are still doing this in the same house. So yeah, it made it made sense to actually bring you on this because when the when I’m talking about where I want to be with this podcast, it’s partly to do with us as a family as well. So that’s where I see us going, but but let’s start off by giving if you can give everybody a bit of your background and how you got into what you’re doing now. At the university. Okay, well,

Richard Allan  01:40

When I was young, I remember the the winter of 81/82 It was pretty snowy back when I was growing up in St. Albans, and I got interested in the weather, you know, what, how can we forecast when snows gonna happen or not? Why do they sometimes get it wrong? And you know, so I got interested in the weather and then I learned about how you know, 20,000 years ago, we were in the midst of an ice age and there were ice sheets moving across northern Britain. And so I became interested in how that happened. And so I studied my maths and physics and then went on to do go to university and then had a PhD at University of Reading and now I’m a climate scientist at the University of Reading and having previously worked at the Met Office for a bit as well. And I also have worked on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Liz Allan  02:33

So do you want to just expand a little bit on that? So it was a new chapter that they’d introduced wasn’t it for for the IPCC? Just explain a little about a bit about that chapter.

Richard Allan  02:44

Yeah. So I mean, the IPCC was set up to assess the current understanding of climate change. And that’s been periodically there been reports assessment reports since the 1990. So the latest one I was involved in and the ones before that. So this time, there was a new chapter on the water cycle. So I was a lead author in that but I was also involved in the summary for policymakers, which I think is an extremely important document that kind of fed into the COP26 in Glasgow and as you will remember, we kind of disturbed our, our summer in 2021. When I had to go into these approval process where you actually have to get 150 government representatives to agree line by line every sentence of the report and that’s important because, therefore, each country has a buy in to what the report says it’s kind of agreed to it and therefore, it’s kind of it’s a motivation that they need to act on it because you know, it’s been agreed jointly.

Liz Allan  03:51

Okay, true. Yes, I’m Yes, I do. I do remember that very much. So it was quite a stressful time, wasn’t it then? Yeah. Especially eating eating into the summer holidays. So. So can you just give everybody a little bit of background, I’d like you to kind of provide a bit of science background if you can to climate change. What’s happened in order for us to reach this point, and what have we done to contribute to it?

Richard Allan  04:18

Yeah. So I mean, we know we know that climate has always changed, you know, going back millions of years or 10s of 1000s of years. And you can look at the data going back and you see climate has changed naturally. But what’s happening now is completely extraordinary. It’s it’s well outside of what we can see. So for example, you can go back and look at ice cores in Antarctica that go down nearly two kilometres. And the further back you go further down you go that it’s like a time machine the further back in time you go and that can tell you about these wild swings that I mentioned before about ice ages and interglacial periods that we’re in now. But what it also does is it traps fossilised kind of bubbles of air in the ice core. So you can actually track the atmospheric composition over time. And that actually shows that carbon dioxide has been varying quite a lot over many 10s of 1000s of years, between about 180 and 280 parts per million in the atmosphere. It’s very small amounts but significant because carbon dioxide is such a strong greenhouse gas. And so we know that carbon dioxide helps to amplify these climate these places your cycles in the past, but the crucial thing is the current concentrations rather than being between 180 and 280 parts per million, and now at four 420 parts per million. So well outside what’s happened before. And we know for a fact that current concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the highest in at least the last 2 million years, at least probably a lot longer. And that’s important because carbon dioxide is a very potent greenhouse gas. We’ve already got a natural greenhouse effect on earth that keeps the planet habitable. But if you add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, it enhances it strengthens this greenhouse effect it It limits how efficiently the air can the atmosphere and cools the space. So what we’re in the moment is that carbon dioxide is going up. That’s meaning there’s more energy coming in and leaving and that’s causing the climate to warm up. And we know for a fact that carbon dioxide is is rising because of humans. And it’s primarily because of burning of fossil fuels. So coal predominantly, but also oil and natural gas as well. They’re also making cement is a big effect, and to a lesser extent, is still important deforestation. So we know that every year human activities is putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And some people might argue, well, these amounts that are going into the atmosphere are tiny compared to what naturally comes out and back into the ocean every year but that’s true, but these natural flows of carbon dioxide and carbon are imbalance whereas we’re tipping things out of balance and that increase in carbon dioxide is heating the planet. And then you get some knock on effects that actually amplify that climate change. So the bottom line is that we know that human activities have increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that’s heating the planet. And we know that pretty much all the warming that we’ve seen since pre industrial times, which is about just over one degrees C. One degrees Celsius is exclusively due to human activities. So we’ve already caused a warming of one degrees C.

Liz Allan  07:44

So what is going to happen in future to the climate if we don’t do something to prevent, prevent this from keeping on, you know, from happening, moving forwards?

Richard Allan 07:56

So I mean, we’re all aware of the extreme events that are going on across the world. So we’ve seen in the last couple of years, for example, severe flooding in Belgium, Netherlands and Germany last year. We’ve had a severe heatwave in Western Europe this year, as we remember. And also drought conditions, but we’ve also seen severe flooding in other places and these these events you can’t pin each event will say, Well, this event was caused by climate change due to humans. But what you can say is that the warming because of human activities, has made these events more severe. And so the reason for that is, for example, take the flooding that we’ve seen in this country but also in Europe and China and elsewhere. In a warmer world, the air holds more water, more water vapour, invisible, gaseous water vapour, and when that gets drawn into storms, that then gets sucked in and then spewed out as as rainfall or snowfall. And the intensity of the rainfall is is stronger in a warmer world. And similarly, a warmer atmosphere is more thirsty for this water. So in some regions, it’s sucking moisture out of the ground more effectively and moving up with the winds into the storm systems. But you know where it’s sucking out the ground, you can get the onset of drought more rapidly. The warmer temperatures, of course, will exacerbate heat waves and wildfires. So we’re already seeing some of these effects happening. And if we carry on warming, as we’re doing these events are only going to become more severe. So it’s like we haven’t we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg so far. So things are gonna get worse we’re gonna get more intense rainfall and flooding events. Gonna get more severe droughts like one for example, we’re seeing Somalia. We’re gonna get more serious heat waves like we saw in Western Europe with unprecedented record breaking temperatures. So every bit of warming is important. As we warm the planet more will increase the severity of these extremes, and they’ll particularly hit the most vulnerable across the globe.

Liz Allan  10:08

So what can we do to prevent this ourselves?

Richard Allan  10:14

So as I said, the primary cause of this is we’re emitting carbon dioxide and to a lesser extent, but still important methane and nitrous oxides into the atmosphere and that’s making the greenhouse effects more, more potent. So the simple solution, simple to save and not to do is to cut greenhouse gas emissions. So not just slow, the rate at which we’re emitting that actually cut to net zero. So we’ve got to, you know, actually get to the stage where any residual emissions of carbon dioxide or methane are balanced by a flux of carbon dioxide into the ground or into the ocean, using any technological solutions or nature based solutions we can so that’s where we’ve got to get to, at the moment, we’re still actually increasing emissions, let alone decreasing emissions and let alone getting anywhere near to net zero. So so that, you know that is what we’ve got to do to limit climate change. We can’t go back to where we were in pre industrial times, but we can limit the warming to say, going back to the Paris Climate Agreement a few years ago, limiting the warming well below two degrees above pre industrial and if possible, 1.5 degrees C above pre industrial, and those levels were chosen because above those levels, you start to get really unmanageable consequences across the globe.

Liz Allan  11:46

So you’ve just mentioned net zero then. So we hear Net Zero a lot, don’t we? So in order for us to reach that. So actually do you know what, can you just give us an explanation of what what we see net zero being as you know, as I say, like a small business for me, you know, and and individuals that are watching and listening to this what what is actually what is it what is net zero?

Richard Allan 12:13

Well, I mean, theoretically it would it would be where all human activities that generate per extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would cease there’d be none of that. Practically that’s not going to be possible even in the long term because there are certain activities that will generate some emissions. I mean, unless we cut all flights, or somehow generate flights that are able to run on batteries or, or and solar, and they’ll always be some emissions. So practically, they’ll have to be some technological or nature based solution whereby any emissions of carbon into the atmosphere through a burning oil that makes carbon dioxide into the atmosphere any of that is balanced by an equal and opposite flow of carbon into either the land or into the ocean through some solution where you know, for example, reforesting, or foresting regions permanently is using, but using native trees that will survive, but other other ways. For example, we hear about where you can grow a crop that takes in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it grows. The carbon goes into its trunks. You burn that crop for energy, but then you capture the gas that comes out the carbon dioxide that comes out and bury it deep underground. That’s one theoretical solution. So you have a virtuous cycle where you’re continually growing crops generating energy, but capturing the carbon and storing underground. So you’re actually drawing in carbon into the ground in that process. But none of these technological solutions have been proven yet. We’re at the early stages in kind of developing some of these possibilities.

Liz Allan  14:02

So that’s kind of like a positive trade off then, isn’t it that we’re talking about? We’re sort of as in a trade of one, we’re doing one thing, and therefore we need to do something else to compensate for those those things that are actually happening. Is that what you’re saying?

Richard Allan 14:16

Kind of I mean, essentially, the bottom line is we’ve got to massively reduce our emissions. That’s the number one number one aim. So any activity that produces carbon dioxide, be it driving a car, be heating your home with natural gas, going on a flight, you know, these emissions have got to be reduced to as low as we can as close to zero as we can so for example, moving towards electrification of the energy system, from natural gases as a heating method and reducing flights to reducing emissions from flights for example, through industry and reducing methane emissions from agriculture. And then anything that’s leftover that we can’t reduce any further, then we’d have to balance by some technological fix to actually draw carbon in to the ground through these technological solutions. So we’re getting to a balance so any emission any emissions are balanced by a net uptake of carbon through technological means, and that’ll be

Liz Allan  15:21

interesting. Yeah, I was gonna say that there’s so much innovation out there at the moment. That was that EV show the other day at the Excel and just seeing that on the electric vehicle infrastructure. You know, the actual innovation that’s out there that is coming through is just amazing. I was my mind was blown as I went, went round this exhibition so so I can imagine there’s things that are being invented now that we don’t even know about, but we’ll help with all this one.

Richard Allan  15:54

Yeah, for sure.

Liz Allan  15:57

So, this, if we look at climate change our you know, kind of over the past few years, obviously we’ve been together for a number of years. We’ve come across you come across plenty of sceptics out there. So so how what’s happened to change their minds? Is it just because of the fact that you can’t you can’t argue with the evidence of what’s happening, or are there other things that are actually changing people’s minds?

Richard Allan 16:27

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I mean, there was always a lot of evidence, even your back in the 90s when there were a lot of sceptics who were very vocal in the early 2000s. But you’re right, their position is untenable based on the scientific evidence, but nevertheless, you’ve got to see why you know what the motivation is for some of the the sceptics, and many of them may have interests in fossil fuel industries or something like or some funding, so there can be that aspect that there’s a kind of an additional motivation for them to hold a particular view. Otherwise, you know, once you’ve got a view, it’s very difficult to change it even as a scientist, you know, you do a selective filtering of information that comes in and you like the stuff that agrees with what you what you think and you’re not so keen on the stuff that doesn’t but, you know, the science is so clear now, based on multiple lines of evidence across many, many years that yeah, I very rarely come into contact with climate sceptics now because that position is untenable.

Liz Allan  17:33

There is there is one person that I can remember that you spoke in front or you spoke at a site I’m not I’m not going to mention that person’s name, but that was that was a very interesting time was when you actually went up against a real massive climate. So

Richard Allan  17:49

I found it incredibly, incredibly stressful because I was quite an early stage in my career, and they were almost questioning my integrity, my scientific expertise. So and because they, you know, they will just bombard you with these, you know, 20 Page dense documents saying why they were right. And you can’t literally respond to some of these things rapidly because even though the evidence is clear, it’s difficult to pick arguments with the people who are very skilled at manipulating and cherry picking. So yeah. Not so much of that to deal with these days.

Liz Allan  18:30

I’m glad you’ve not gone up against him. Again. I mean, it’d be interesting to see whether that person’s actually changed, changed his mind just out of curiosity, hopefully hopefully so because you know, the the evidence that you say now is indisputable, so

Richard Allan  18:46

I’ve not heard a peep from them in years.

Liz Allan  18:49

Thank God for that. So I was gonna I was going to actually also talk about so part of the reason as I have explained this on the on the very first podcast is about our reason behind the podcast in the first place, which so which isn’t just piggybacking what what you do you know, kind of in the university, it’s my own journey as a as an individual as well as us as a family. And, you know, I’d like to actually give back as well, you know, and and I think trying to educate people about climate change, because there’s such a lot of information out there and so much noise and people don’t always hear the positive side of things and and they’ll kind of they’ll get a little glimpse of something that’s going on and they they just kind of think that it’s just there’s just negative negative things. So that’s part of the reason why I wanted to kind of release this podcast, because as a family, we’re going on a journey out we really, you know, if I call it the journey to electrification, that’s kind of what our long term journey is, isn’t it?

Richard Allan 20:07

Yeah. And it’s it’s everyone’s journey as well. Isn’t it? You mentioned when, for example, the University of Reading is a large company in Reading is, is, you know, trying to move to net zero by 2030 and you’re there, you know, hugely electrifying. Using solar panels, their infrastructure. Now we’re looking into moving away from obviously, burning natural gas for heating and cooling towards heat. So there’s there’s those kinds of aspects but of course, or other personal things that people can do. Flying less or not at all is probably the top one in a rich society because that uses produces so many co2 per person. Cutting out driving going towards walking, cycling. You know, those kind of aspects, changing the diet to a low carbon diet. So for example, predominantly plant based, and it’s not almost a matter of, you know, saying eating meat, you know, going plant based on one day, it’s more like going meat, eating meat on one day, you know, if a famous person once said if we all do a little bit will achieve a little bit, everyone’s got to do a massive amount. So the only real way that that individuals can contribute a massive amount is is through coordinated collaborative cross sector approaches. So that’s where on the one hand, you’ve got governments who are setting laws and building, building a framework for to help people like us to move towards low carbon but also you’ve got the fact that reading or a council for example, is doing a lot towards getting to net zero. So local councils, cities, large companies, local groups, so real cross group and across sectors so transport agriculture, heating, you know, across all these aspects, and it’s got to be a cross sector kind of approach whereby small groups can contribute, but you do need this, this top down contribution as well as a bottom up contribution, because, like you mentioned earlier on, we’ve got this common aim of getting to net zero. We don’t want to increase the severity of flooding, droughts, heat waves, and also there’s a long term issues of sea level rise because sea level will kick continue rising for hundreds, even 1000s of years because it takes that kind of timescale for the deep oceans to heat up and expand, but also for giant ice sheets like Greenland to melt. So if you went back to the last time that the world was a comparable level of temperatures, it wasn’t the last decade. That’s 125,000 years ago, the last interglacial period when sea levels were maybe five to 10 metres higher. than they are today. So these kinds of things to think about really hit home as to what an important point in human history we’re at. And so we’ve got to all act cross sector, and you’re right that individually, we can also do our bit with the help of governments and local Borough Councils. So with our house for example, you know, we’re still got an inefficient house, we need to insulate it better. If it’s well insulated, then perhaps we can move to heat pumps, rather than natural gas, solar panels for electricity. And, of course, helping to charge our future electric car which we will need to get at some point soon. So yeah, sorry, that was a bit of a long answer to your question.

Liz Allan  23:55

No, it’s absolutely absolutely fine. It’s not it’s not long. I was gonna say, our son, James is, as you as we both know, is 17. So So really, what we do now will affect him when we’re gone, won’t it? You know, so, so all we have to think about this in kind of, I’m not trying to be morbid or anything like that. But we have to think about the people that the kids now the teenagers and you know, people what we do now will affect them in the long term, won’t it so, so it’s about leaving, leaving them not leaving a band not leaving, leaving a negative legacy is about leaving a positive legacy for them. Isn’t it really

Richard Allan  24:39

good point because that’s the other thing too, to act thoughtfully. So rather than just acting with the sole purpose of got to get to net zero net zero, you can get to net zero through methods that can help in other ways. Help quality of life, the way we live our lives, through nature based solutions, helping to deal with the biodiversity biodiversity crisis. And so having methods to get to net zero that are also helping to improve the lives of humans but also the lives of ecosystems, animals plants.

Liz Allan  25:19

Yeah, it’s a it’s a long term thing, isn’t it? It’s not a, it’s as I say, with continuous improvement. It’s not an overnight thing. You know, this, this is long term, but we all we all need to be in it for the ride. And this is this is kind of this podcast really is to kind of get that word out there and try and reach people just like me. And so we’re not all professors. Obviously, I’m not but you know, just, you know, kind of anybody I want this to get out to as many people as as I possibly can, because I just think education is really, really important. And that’s how I see this podcast being it’s an education. For other people. It’s an education for me, for us as a family, you know, because the journey that we’re on to actually make our family life more sustainable and kind of work, you know, be using more renewable sources and kind of be more sensible about how we’re dealing with things moving forward. I just see that that is really important.

Richard Allan  26:22

And I’ll try and tune in as well, because I could learn a a heck of a lot.

Liz Allan  26:25

I have have been talking to some brilliant people already. So So yeah, it’s it’s gonna be a real journey for us all. So, so I’m going to I’m going to finish there by just asking if people want to get a hold of you. How do they find you? You’ve got a university website, haven’t you? So you’re on you’re on the web.

Richard Allan 26:49

So you could Google Richard Allan climate that usually gets to me

Liz Allan  26:53

and Allan with an an everybody thinks we’re an en

Richard Allan 26:58

I’ll not respond to any messages to Professor Allen.

Liz Allan  27:04

But you’re also on Twitter as well, aren’t you? So? I can’t remember what your Twitter handle is.

Richard Allan  27:08

rpallanuk

Liz Allan  27:11

Yeah, yeah, that’s it, isn’t it? Oh, just find find him on the Reading University. Websites that you’ll be on there. But, but listen, thank you very much for joining me. It’s been it’s been really I’m sure. I’m sure we shall. I shall be getting you back on here again. But thank you very much, and to everybody else. Thank you for listening and watching and I shall see you soon. Bye.

Liz Allan  27:37

Thanks for listening to Electric Evolution with Liz Allan. If you want to find out more about full circle continuous improvement, please visit www.fullcircleci.co.uk. Don’t forget to keep listening for more episodes coming up really soon.