By Kalyan Sarma, VP of Climate, Environment, and Sustainability Commercialisation at Ploughshare

Climate change is the biggest challenge of the century. This biggest of those challenges is perhaps not the science itself, or even the scientific solutions to combatting climate change. After all, the basis of scientific thinking can be changed as soon as the science it’s based on changes or is disproven. Changing behaviours, however, is a bit more difficult. The science can be there and not accepted, and that is where the big problems lie.

For us at Ploughshare, and the hundreds of scientists we all know personally working on sustainability research – we might be ahead of the science curve, but we also see a marked change in countries and industry across the globe realising the gravity of the climate change challenge.

At COP29, as I said last year, we need to be in acceptance that without industry’s involvement, we have no chance to effectively combat climate change. Whether we like it or not, those in the energy industry – among others – have the experience when it comes to dealing with industry disruption, effectively completing long-scale research and development projects, and scaling up new technologies to make science economically viable for the end-user. In this case, the end user is both governments and the average person on the street. Without this expertise, and the open and honest collaboration between these two main parties, we won’t win. It’s as simple as that.

The key to it all is that this disruption towards renewable energy has created a tremendous need for new IP and new technologies. We need to innovate to survive, and for our scientists across the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) as well as other scientists across government, getting these new and effective technologies to market either as disruptive new companies or licensed products is what is squarely in our sights. This outlook is immediate – the next 5-10 years will be pivotal – but we can’t also forget that this is a long game. 15 years and beyond is equally important, and collaboration between industry and government is the way to get this going on a long-term basis.

Ploughshare’s outlook is as an enabler of discovering these technologies, liberating them to the market, and then aiding in scaling them up. But we cannot do it alone, despite our best intentions. We need external investment from either private outlets, or industry, to help us get the incredible science that is in the minds of some brilliant scientists out into the big wide world – and not just sit on a shelf somewhere and not realise its true potential. COP is one of the places that all parties can come together and get that collaborative ball moving.

As one of the G7, it’s only right that our PM has gone to Baku to ensure that the UK’s expertise is promoted, our energy industry colleagues are listened to, and our science is advocated for. But it’s only through that collaboration that we can ensure the UK can contribute effectively to that new and growing market that is sorely in need of new innovations to boost climate, environment, and sustainability technologies.

Although the deal that was eventually reached may not be exactly what everyone wants, it is one that can allow for growth as well as being a good foundation for bringing more parties to the table such as private investors who might be heartened by government funding commitments.

I will often say that we need to collaborate to innovate, people are probably sick of hearing it. But for climate change it’s not just innovating that collaboration will help with – it’s survival.