The climate target formulated in the Paris Agreement to limit the average global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires numerous innovations in the field of energy technology and climate protection. To this end, engineers are working day in, day out on solutions to reduce theCO2 footprint. The VDI is now increasingly supporting these efforts with its new Interdisciplinary Committee on Climate Protection and Energy Transition (IGKE). Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bradke, previously Chairman of the VDI Society for Energy and the Environment (GEU) for many years, has been elected Chairman of the IGKE.
Harald Bradke elected Chairman of the new VDI committee
"With the IGKE, we are acting as a think tank for achieving the key goal of thinking about climate protection and the sectors that contribute to it together," explains Bradke. "All sectors - from energy generation to industry and mobility - are interconnected and must be considered in terms of their mutual interactions. This is the only way to implement climate protection consistently and affordably in the long term."
With this strategic focus, IGKE works on cross-disciplinary and cross-sector issues relating to climate protection and the energy transition. For the upcoming federal elections in September, IGKE will examine and publicly comment on the election manifestos of the major parties and their contributions to achieving the 1.5° target. "As an independent, technology-neutral association, we provide transparent insights into all solution paths with their advantages and disadvantages," says Bradke. "The VDI is therefore able to present different paths in a balanced way and make recommendations that are not determined by particular interests. Only in this way can we manage to mitigate dangers such as droughts, storms and rising sea levels, which threaten millions of people worldwide, in an ecologically and economically sensible way. In this respect, the 1.5 degree target is very close to our hearts."
As part of the interdisciplinary VDI initiative "1.5 degrees - INNOVATIONS.ENERGY.CLIMATE. - Together for the climate target", experts from all VDI specialist societies are already making numerous contributions: Whether questions of climate protection, industry, the provision of electricity and heat or mobility - VDI experts from areas such as solar energy, wind power, electromobility and the heating transition are providing well-founded recommendations on all key topics.
The German Engineering Day on May 20, 2021 will also focus on climate protection and the energy transition. Experts from politics, business and science will discuss the big question of how the 1.5 degree target can be achieved together.
