RAIL PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW |
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Interview
Rachel Skinner, President of the Institution of Civil Engineers Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to Rachel Skinner, President of the Institution of Civil Engineers about carbon accountancy, achieving net zero and how engineers can take climate action running of the railway Tell us about the Shaping Zero programme and how it relates to the rail industry. ‘Shaping Zero’ is my year-long theme as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. It is all about climate action – and in particular, shining a spotlight on the need for new ways of working and thinking across all civil engineering sectors, including rail. Infrastructure is responsible for around 70 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, both through the way we plan, design and build things and also because the infrastructure systems we’ve brought to life continue to enable and encourage carbonhungry behaviours every single day, across the world. Those same carbon dioxide emissions drive climate change in today’s world. To me, it is obvious that we have to change – but I think that seizing this change brings hugely exciting opportunities to evolve what we do. For centuries, engineers have shared a common purpose to improve the lives of people around us, and this remains the same. What’s new is that we have to create new ways to do this without causing harm to the world around us, and ideally while putting right the harm of the past. In headline terms, what do engineers have to do differently? To get to a net zero balance by 2050, our first engineering task is to work much faster towards cutting carbon emissions; we must halve 2020 emissions levels by 2030. We also have to build up our natural systems and technologies to process carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere at a much faster pace. In parallel, we have to recognise that we have at least 30 years of a worsening climate Rail Professional
