The critical need to tackle process emissions from wastewater treatment has been highlighted as a key priority at COP26.
The climate event, which included a water pavilion for the first time, kicked off in Glasgow with Water UK and Anglian Water co-hosting the water themed portion of the agenda.
Peter Simpson, chief executive of Anglian, said process emissions remain the toughest challenge on the journey to net zero: “It’s about alignment, long-term thinking and plans, working with regulators and government, working with customers to reduce demand.”
Simpson said there would be opportunities as part of the challenge and highlighted how the sector’s route map to net zero had led to greater innovation and collaboration than previously seen in the sector.
“We’re working together on these challenges in a very different way to before,” he said, adding that some solutions to lowering process emissions are available, but the industry must “crack on and deliver”.
Samuel Larsen, the director of programmes and planning at Water UK, said reaching net zero by 2030 is “absolutely achievable”.
Larsen, who was instrumental in creating the route map, praised the inclusion of process emissions in the government’s Net Zero Strategy unveiled last month as a step towards implementing the framework to reduce these, which is currently lacking.
Other crucial challenges highlighted by Simpson were reducing water demand and driving down wastage from leaks.
Looking beyond the UK, chair of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Deben, called for investment from wealthy nations to right the wrongs done to the planet and preserve water supplies for future generations.
“One of the things we have done to the world is being absolutely reckless in our use of water, the way we have polluted water and in systems that use water without consideration of where it will come from tomorrow,” Deben said.
He said wealthier countries “must accept we have caused the problem”. He said they must pay for the solution and support developing countries to grow without the “destructive dirty in between” that more economically developed countries benefitted from.