There’s no silver bullet to address climate change but together we can make a difference
Engineer and researcher Dr Nadin Moustafa tackles green skills, decarbonisation and fashion in our latest podcast episode
Optimism and action must drive us forward on climate crisis, says an inspiring engineer and researcher at Imperial College London.
Dr. Nadin Moustafa is research associate at Imperial College London specialising in carbon management and decarbonisation technologies.
Nadin took time out from her busy schedule to join us for episode 13 of The Decarbonisation Dialogue – our Salix podcast.
Her work allows her to specialise in systems modelling for carbon management and decarbonisation technologies, developing net-zero strategies including carbon accounting, policy and carbon markets.
Nadin’s remit incorporates carbon capture and storage from various applications, CO2 removal from the atmosphere, nuclear power, and sustainable fuels.
Today Nadin spends much of her time influencing policy and the way we move forward on climate action.
She believes pessimism is not an option when action is so important now.
Nadin said: “I am optimistic, when I first started working in sustainability and climate change very few people knew what I was talking about.
“When I was first working on carbon capture, again, pretty much not a lot of people knew what I was doing.
“I am optimistic because I think there is a lot happening in this space, there are so many policies going in the right way. Industries are trying to go in the right way.
“There are a lot of people talking about this, doing research, working in this space really trying to get us to our targets on decarbonisation and net zero.
“Now is probably the time for action. We’ve talked a lot about this, we’re researching a lot, we are going to continue doing that, we’re going to continue talking, doing the research, continue communicating the science and we’re probably going to need flexible policies whether government or industrial as we know more. But we do need to do more action now.”
When I was first working on carbon capture, again, pretty much not a lot of people knew what I was doing.
I am optimistic because I think there is a lot happening in this space, there are so many policies going in the right way. Industries are trying to go in the right way.
Ambitious net zero targets
“The UK is a leader in terms of targets, we have very, very strong targets for 2050, we have the Climate Change Committee.
“The UK has made good progress in terms of decarbonising energy demand, phasing out coal, and investing massively in renewables.
“We have decreased our emissions by more than 40% compared to the 1990s levels. But the first 40 % is probably the easy part, phasing out coal gave a lot of carbon budget back.
“Whilst we have very ambitious targets and whilst we’re going in the right direction, and yes, a lot of policy directions are very optimistic, we are not necessarily on track to meet them without bold coordinated action.
“Now is the time to start doing the things, to start building the plants to produce our sustainable fuels, to look at how we’re going to be doing our energy storage, we need to start looking at what kind of infrastructure we’re going to need to electrify our lives.
“We need to start learning by doing.”
As well as having a fluent understanding of technology, Nadin has also studied how we consume and produce fashion.
We’re now buying and consuming more than ever before, according to data.
Fashion and our planet
She said: “Fashion contributes a lot to the global CO2 emissions; it’s also the second largest consumer of water worldwide, it pollutes the water with microplastics, textile dying is also a large polluter of water.”
Nadin said 85% of textiles each year are dumped in landfill every year – by all of us.
“We don’t need that many clothes.”
Nadin points to tips that we can all follow, like holding on to our clothes for an extra six months, washing under lower heat using colder water which decreases the amount microplastics that go into the oceans.
She added: “The more we do these things, we also send more of a signal to industry and governments that this is something we care about, and we need you to act on it.”
However, Nadin is anxious not to put too much of the burden on individuals and, within reason everyone needs to take their share of responsibility.
She agrees there is a lot of information to digest including that on social media which can cloud the issues about what is good or bad for the planet. This makes it hard for many of us to make informed decisions about what we’re consuming.
She added: “If we all do our part, we will reach that goal where it’s the default, it’s not a luxury, that you can only do if you can afford to spend more or we can afford an extra couple of hours a week to do that research.”
She understands that there is a cost to being more sustainable.
“I do think people care and I do think people are prepared to change. It’s quite important for it to be a collaborative thing, to be involved in the process, for there to be transparency and trust.”
Nadin is also keen to put the responsibility for action back onto business too.
“Industries think that they need to solve the problem tomorrow, but that is not the case, we just need to know you have a plan. It’s not perfect now, but it will be close to perfect at some point. It’s good enough for now.
“Having this flexibility where we’re moving towards long term, robust models that are sustainable, whether its from a business perspective, or from a consumer perspective or from a policy perspective is quite important.
“We might not get everything right first time. In engineering the only way you learn is when you start doing it, then you say, I can do this better the next time.
“I think we’re at that stage when I think we need to start by learning by doing and that obviously decreases the costs of things.
“The UK has the ability to be a leader in that, being a leader in the technologies and decreasing the costs.”
Skills and vision
Skills and training are a major part of our planning and the way we move ahead, however, Nadin believes that much of the research on exactly how to do this is still to come.
She said: “It’s not as simple as we need to find all these new skills for what we’re going to do.
“We have the skills, how can we repurpose, retrain and reskill or utilize these skills to make sure we don’t lose them before the next generation comes up.”
Nadin uses the example of the nuclear industry to talk about skills. She conducted research into the demographic of those people who have the specific industry skills for nuclear development – with the majority of those being over 50-years-old.
She would like to see more mapping of the skills we already have, so those skills and learning are not lost.
Nadin added: “We’re going to need some new skills, and we need to make sure we get those, but also we are going to have a lot of skills already at hand that we are gong to retrain and reskill.”
The silver bullet
Nadin understands that globally, we move forward at different paces to reach net zero.
“There is no silver bullet and the more I work on different technologies, the more I realise there isn’t a field I have been in so far where we say, if we do this one technology, we will be able to solve that whole field. I haven’t come across that yet.”
Nadin finishes our interview with a learning from Imperial; “It’s not enough to make simple molecules, we must make them work in a complex world.”
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