At COP27, Goodwill Ambassador Solar Impulse Foundation launched the Solutions Guide for Cities - a compilation of local clean-tech solutions designed to help cities build a robust climate mitigation program.
The Aviation Pioneer, who was responsible for Solar Impulse, the first successful round-the-world solar-powered flight, talks about the power of solutions and innovation to advance climate action around the world.
Question: What has to be done to tackle climate change?
Bertrand Piccard: Instead of negotiating on processes and procedures, we need to sit all around the table with all the solutions, and see which solutions are the most attractive and profitable for every country.
Then go into every sector - one after the other - and take the low hanging fruits, take what is already available. And there are so many hundreds of solutions that are already available that are just waiting to be used, to be implemented.
Question: You are launching the Solutions Guide for Cities through your foundation. Can you tell us more about that?
Bertrand Piccard: When they say that profitable solutions exist, it's not just a claim, it is a proof. We have done with the Solar Impulse Foundation during five years, the selection of all these solutions, and we have now identified more than 1,400 of them. We are launching at COP a selection of those specially for cities, knowing that cities represent 75 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.
This is where we have to focus all the solutions in construction, habitat, mobility, energy, water, waste management, smart grid, and all these things. It's unbelievable to see that also for the cities, there are a lot of ways to get to decarbonized in a profitable way.
Question: Can you tell us more about some of solutions projects that you are excited about?
Bertrand Piccard: Since the beginning of the industrial age, there has been smoke going out of the chimneys of factories. But it's not only smoke, it's also heat which means energy, which means dollars. It's money going through the chimney. There is a startup that is recovering this heat in order to get it back to the factory. It's not only less pollution, it's not only less carbon dioxide, but it's a 20 to 40 per cent reduction in the energy bill of the factory. But there is no incentive to do that, people don't even know you can do it.
You have other systems, which are public lighting, that allow to be off the grid with solar cells, batteries, LED lamp [and] it's a 37 per cent reduction in the electricity bill of the city. But today, there are some rules and regulations that keep this very low in the public procurement because it's too innovative. So what we ask is to break the ceiling of the quota for innovation in order to protect the environment much better with these innovations that protect the environment.
Today, you can solve the problems of the carbon dioxide of the construction of buildings, of living in the buildings. You can solve the problem of the waste by using the waste to do something else, recycling the waste. You can purify and recycle water, you can be efficient in energy so renewable energy would be enough. You have electric mobility, you have everything except the systemic approach where all the administrations work together to make it happen.
Question: What are your takeaways from COP27 so far?
Bertrand Piccard: What I noticed in COP27 - still like in the years before, the governments are afraid to commit to ambitious NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) because they believe it's a handicap to sacrifice for their economic development.
They have not yet understood that fighting climate change [and] protecting the environment is the best business opportunity. This is how they create new jobs. This is how they get more profitable because they use renewable energies that are cheaper, they reduce the energy bill; because we can introduce more efficiency, for energy, for food, for waste, for the industrial processes. And we should speak much more about the solutions to make the climate change fight much more profitable and attractive.
Question: How different is the world since COP26 in Glasgow last year?
Bertrand Piccard: I'm shocked because I hear that because of the war in Ukraine, we have to put aside some measures for the environment, because it's urgent to have more gas, to have more oil, to have more fossil fuels. Well, I believe it’s completely wrong.
It's exactly like the moment when I wanted to create Solar Impulse, the solar aeroplane to go around the world. The specialist told me - you don't have enough energy from the sun so you cannot do it. It's the paradigm of the quantity of production all the time. What we did was to make an efficient aeroplane that would cope with the energy that sun was giving.
Today, instead of finding new suppliers for gas and oil, in order to keep the production of fuel high, we should also become more efficient, we should implement all the technologies that allow us to save energy, to save natural resources to produce less waste, to have more efficiency. This is not what I see.
Today the answer to the energy crisis, and the answer to the climate crisis are exactly the same - reduce fossil fuels, be more efficient, save natural resources.
Read what other prominent Voices from COP27 are saying about the themes, negations and the way forward.
