The end is nigh

We all need to consider our roles in the carbon economy, both as engineers and consumers. Climate change is a fact of life which will affect us all. It has huge implications for CIBSE members in particular, in the way they work, and what they can do to help meet this pressing environmental challenge.

The new CIBSE Carbon Task Group, inaugurated in January 2002, aims to: 'Enable and ensure that CIBSE initiates and adopts processes that will redirect society to a low carbon future in pursuit of the mitigation and eventual reversal of man-made climate change'.

I believe the Carbon Task Group will have a major impact on the work of CIBSE and the wider world. It is set to facilitate a watershed in the affairs of CIBSE, shepherding UK building services engineering into the burgeoning global carbon management industry, where its future lies.

And, not a moment too soon, for it is crucially important to the very continuance of CIBSE, and the jobs of its members, that we are properly established in the carbon management industry. We must be there at a professional level, not merely as 'pipes-and-wires' trade representatives.

Too often in the recent past we have only acknowledged an emerging technology when it was already dominated by the management consultancy firms, who make money from adding value to expertise they cull from us. We see £30-an-hour earnings doled out to us from the £500-an-hour rates they secure.

It doesn't take an oracle to see that most of what we now enjoy as a livelihood, will not be wanted beyond this decade. Why should we imagine we will be different from shipbuilders, steelworkers, or other, even highly-trained engineers, as far as future employment is concerned? If our trades become obsolete, no-one will employ us. We must develop new skills to remain in demand.

They need us a much as we need them
The irony is that while it is clear to me that CIBSE will not exist into 2020 unless we embrace the carbon management industry, that very industry needs CIBSE members more than it needs any other engineering discipline or group of people. So there it stands – offering us a great future, but it won't stand long before predators snap it up.

We must not fail society, and ourselves, by dropping the baton at this dividing summit of our existence. Be assured that it is society, and the very future of mankind, that is in jeopardy, and looking to engineers to mitigate and then reverse the enormity of man-made climate change.

Locating the problem
My simple hypothesis on carbon, which is surely now confirmed by extensive modelling of the global climate, is that the location of a planet's carbon greatly determines its climate. Taken to limits, Venus with a 96% CO₂ atmosphere, suffers a 500°C surface temperature, while Mars with virtually all its carbon frozen in its rock, has a 0°C climate. Earth sits precariously, comfortably, till now, at 15°C thanks to a 0·035% CO₂ atmosphere.

Clearly our overriding obligation is to address and manage the location of carbon. To begin with we have to halt the annual shifting of some 3000 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, coming from 5000 million tonnes of fossil fuels. That requires a 60% cut in present fossil carbon emissions just to bring about a carbon neutral status.

That will be achieved by a 'cap, trade and switch' approach: capping by energy efficiency, which then enables switching to renewables and clean use of fossil fuels, with trading utilised where it is necessary to adjust time scales for economic programming of the task.

Setting and achieving a carbon neutral objective for the way we live is essential and it begins in the home. We have to think and act so that each of us and all our activities are carbon neutral. Afterwards, and only when we are thinking that way ourselves, can we, as carbon management engineers, be strategic advisors and accreditation authorities for wider carbon neutral action plans. It is through this that we can preserve and advance our future careers.

It is crucially important to the very continuance of CIBSE, and the jobs of its members, that we are properly established in the carbon management industry.

Not just an add-on, but a duty
CIBSE's response to the Meacher challenge, where environment minister, Michael Meacher, challenged CIBSE to say how it was going to help combat climate change, made energy efficiency and the switch to renewable and clean fossil fuel technologies not just things to be noted and adopted as occasion allows, but a code of conduct for every CIBSE engineer to follow and advance at all times.

This implies that they must follow a cap and switch approach in all their designs as a first obligation and adopt the actions outlined later in the text.

CIBSE's response to the challenge also acknowledged a need for the Institute to engage with a wider audience on the subjects of energy use and emissions.

It also stated members need to be kept abreast of issues emerging from government activities on climate change mitigation. The Carbon Trust, the Energy Saving Trust, Ofgem, and the supply-side industries should all be familiar areas of opportunity and action if future energy policy is to stand any chance.

Similarly the Climate Change Levy can be seen as a direct challenge to our engineering skills, while carbon emissions trading and the latest PIU (Performance and Innovation Unit of Cabinet Office) report will extend and test it further. Those mechanisms effectively promote our industry and thereby demand actions far beyond the policy statements made in our initial response to the Meacher challenge.

The need for building labelling
Implementation of Part L of the Building Regulations brings an immediate test of our readiness to move forward, and that step takes us directly to building labelling.

Quite simply, until you label something, you don't know what you're looking at. Just as household white goods have advanced through labelling, so will buildings, and all their constituent and associated parts. Buildings must stand up to scrutiny over their ability to meet both the needs of their users and of the global environmental obligation. Labelling will bring this about and CIBSE must be a key facilitator for it.

A closer affinity with the supply-side of energy comes with the introduction of chp (combined heat and power), particularly with site-size Microgen technologies. This increases with the switch to renewable energy sources, especially when they are applied INREB (Integrated New and Renewable Energy for Buildings). Meanwhile, the clean-use of fossil fuels by, for example, carbon capture and long-term storage will soon to be part of our palette of options.

Attention to demand-side use of energy is our constant stock-in-trade and still has far to go, for the gap between achievable ambition and actual realisation is all too evident. Similarly, since the buildings we help produce, are not end products, a far greater involvement in the correct operation of buildings, including user equipment is long overdue. Probe studies clearly show that our designs would benefit no end from time spent participating in their operation.

The journey ahead
There has to be urgency behind the work of the Carbon Task Group. Furthermore, to get the necessary rapid dissemination, it is important that the Group's activities are widely seen and heard.