Climate change and Covid

Over the past year governments all over the world told businesses to radically step up their strategies for going green and shifting away from fossil fuels.

The Glasgow COP 26 Climate Conference in November saw the host, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, setting out why humanity had to “act now”.

Mr Johnson declared: “If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow”.

After the two weeks of talking in Glasgow, a draft deal pledging to “phase out” use of the dirtiest fuel, coal, was rejected by the biggest coal users, China and India.

But climate experts welcomed the fact that a reference to coal did stay in the final agreement, with a commitment instead to “phase down” coal use.

Many established business leaders have already got the message and some have already completely changed what they do.

The Australian mining entrepreneur, Andrew Forrest, the CEO of Fortescue Metals Group, told the BBC how his firm’s large iron ore trucks and trains were being converted to so-called “green hydrogen”.

To make “green hydrogen”, renewable energy - like wind power - is used to create electricity that then splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. That hydrogen is captured to use as a fuel. In a hydrogen engine, the main emission is harmless water vapour.

“This is the day the fossil fuel industry has denied would come. There are huge sources of green hydrogen - if the world bothers to make the transition. My own company is making the transition right now,” he said.

The entrepreneur said he took a four year PhD to study the environment and had learned that “global warming is frighteningly real.”

In April he took Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, to his vast mining operations that dig out iron ore to make the world’s steel.

Mr Forrest described how the prime minister faced “big beefy Australian workers” who would put an arm round Mr Morrison, saying “come on ScoMo we’re all going green, what’s taking you so long? Green is the future mate”.

A few months after that visit, Scott Morrison committed to making Australia “net-zero” by 2050 in line with the US, Japan, the EU and UK.

“Net zero” means that any climate damaging emissions are offset by emissions that are removed from the environment. China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are focussing on a 2060 “net zero” target. India’s target is 2070.