summarize text each 150 words

adapted from;

Raftery, T. (n.d.). Three Industries Where Technology Is Reducing Our Carbon Footprint. Retrieved December 9, 2019, from Forbes website: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/12/02/three-industries-where-technology-is-reducing-our-carbon-footprint/

centralised (adj): describing something which is controlled from one central place. e.g. All decision making is centralised in our company. We have to ask the people in the main office for permission every time we want to make a change.

decentralised (adj): describing something which is not strongly controlled from one central place. e.g. Government is decentralised in my country. We can make quite big decisions in our local area without getting permission from government offices in the capital city.

electric grids (n): electric networks e.g. After the last big storm, there were problems with the electric grid and my town had no electricity for 4 hours.

emissions / emitter (n): gasses which come out of something (such as machines) / the machine, industry or people who produce these gasses e.g CO2 emissions have dropped in some countries because more people are using electric cars. Europeans and Americans are the worst emitters of greenhouse gasses.

food miles (n): the distance which food travels from the place it is produced to the place it is consumed e.g. I always try to buy vegetables produced locally. Imported vegetables have much higher food miles and, as a result, are more damaging to the environment.

fossil fuel (n): oil, coal or natural gas

hybrid (adj): describing something which is a mix of two things e.g. My new hybrid car uses its electric motor in the city and only starts to use its petrol engine on the motorway.

natural gas (n): a type of fuel which is burned to generate electricity or produce heat e.g. The UAE and Qatar are the world’s biggest producers of natural gas .

renewable / renewably sourced (adj): describing something which can be replaced after we use it e.g. Wood is a renewable material. New trees are planted each year to make sure there is a supply for the future. / I buy all my furniture from this company because I know that all their wood is renewably sourced .

running cost (n): the cost of day-to-day use (not the cost of buying something) e.g. My car was really cheap to buy. It only cost AED 40,000. However, the running costs are really high. I spend AED 400 on petrol every week and one service costs up to AED 1000.

urban (adj): in the city

We need to significantly reduce our carbon emissions to limit the amount of warming our planet undergoes as a consequence of climate change.

Technology may help us to meet this challenge. Some of the industries with the highest carbon footprint (energy, transportation, and agriculture), are now experiencing enormous changes which are impacting emissions.

The energy sector is undergoing a massive transition globally from centralised system, often relying on fossil fuel, to one increasingly powered by decentralised renewable sources. The reasons for this transition are less to do with concern for the planet and more to do with economics. The cost of wind, solar, and lithium-ion battery storage are falling rapidly. Since 2012 the cost of wind power has fallen 50%, solar power has fallen 80%, and battery storage has fallen 85%. It is now at the point where combinations of wind power and battery storage, or solar power and battery storage are able to beat natural gas on price. Consequently, the use of renewable power generation is rising rapidly, while the share of new fossil fuel generation is falling fast.

Changes are happening in energy demand as well as supply. More and more organisations are demanding that their energy provider only supply clean, renewably sourced electricity. A significant and growing number of the world’s major companies are either sourcing all their electricity from renewable sources or have committed to doing so in the near future. Companies do this because it is good for business. Consumers feel better about purchasing goods if they know they were produced using renewable energy, and employees feel better about working for organisations committed to renewable energy. As a result of these changes, the carbon intensity of electricity, one of the main carbon polluters is falling worldwide on a gCO2/kWh basis.

Another major polluter, transportation, is also is also going through major changes. At the same time as electric grids the world over are embracing renewable energy, transportation is now starting to use electricity as a fuel. Three factors are causing this change. Firstly, there is increasing environmental awareness among consumers. Environmental regulations from national and local governments also nudge drivers towards electric vehicles (EVs). Finally, the costs to operate an electric vehicle (EV) are significantly less than a fossil fuel one.

Both China and the EU had brought in strict regulations limiting emissions from vehicles. Vehicle manufacturers have had no option but to get on board with the electrification of cars and increasingly other modes of transport as well. The car manufacturer Volkswagen plans to spend €60bn by 2024 to switch to electric, hybrid and connected vehicles. They will introduce up to 75 all-electric models, around 60 hybrid vehicles and plan to sell 26 million all-electric vehicles as well as around 6 million hybrid vehicles by 2029. Daimler recently announced that they will develop no new petrol engines and are focussing instead on electric vehicles. Buses, trucks and refuse collection vehicles are also moving to electric power. This is important not just for reducing their carbon emissions, but also because these vehicles often work primarily in urban centres so converting them from diesel to electric will improve air quality, reduce noise pollution, and significantly reduce the cost of operation for these machines. Lower running costs for larger electric vehicles is also a key factor driving change. In the case of buses, battery-electric buses cost 20c per mile to operate over their lifetime, whereas diesel buses cost 75c and so, battery-electric buses will dominate the market by the late 2020s.

Food production is the third industry where technology is about to play a huge part in reducing our carbon footprint. Agriculture globally accounts for about 13 percent of total global emissions. That makes the agricultural sector the world’s second-largest emitter, after the energy sector. This does not include emissions associated with deforestation to clear land for more agriculture.

However, shifting away from our current practices of food production to one where our plant food is grown in massive indoor vertical farms has the potential to significantly clean up agriculture's environmental toll. Indoor vertical farms use 95% less water and 99% less land than conventional farming practices. They use no soil, require no herbicides or pesticides and they can produce food in the middle of cities, thereby reducing drastically the crop's food miles. When you are producing food so close to the point of consumption, you no longer need to optimise your produce for shelf-life, and you can instead choose to optimise for taste, and/or nutrition.

The clean meat movement is another example of a positive change in the way we feed ourselves. Clean meat is meat that is produced from either cultivating animal cells (without having to slaughter the animal), or by converting plant protein to take on the taste and consistency of animal protein as companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are doing so successfully.

Our current means of producing plant food and meats are vastly inefficient and have a huge carbon footprint. Current farming methods will not feed the population of 9-10 billion inhabitants that we are projected to reach in the coming decades, especially as the middle classes grow in the developing world and their meat consumption expectations grow too. Converting to a system where we produce plants in massive vertical farms, and then using that plant food to create clean meat solves a number of the problems associated with agriculture today, such as our horrific cruelty to the animals we slaughter, the vast amounts of antibiotics that are used in agriculture leading to the development of multi-drug resistant superbugs, and agriculture's massive carbon footprint.

If we return the land we have stolen from nature for agriculture back to the wild we can restore the enormous losses we have seen in recent decades in biodiversity, create a huge new ecotourism industry, and through reforestation remove from the atmosphere much of the carbon we have emitted in the last century, mitigating the or possibly turning back the worst effects of climate change. It is important to remember that although the situation with the climate is indeed dire, there are solutions. We just need to embrace them. Quickly.