Climate Week 2024, New York
Refficiency Leader Professor Jonathan Cullen recently travelled to New York to attend Climate Week.
25/09/24 | FUTURE OF THE FOSSIL ECONOMY: THE PETROCHEMICALS, CLIMATE & HEALTH NEXUS
On 25th September, Jonathan attended an event co-hosted with Bloomberg Philanthropies, Global Alliance for the Future of Food, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, Plastic Solutions Fund, Oak Foundation, V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, and The Bridgespan Group, titled FUTURE OF THE FOSSIL ECONOMY: THE PETROCHEMICALS, CLIMATE & HEALTH NEXUS.
Jonathan gave an 8 minute talk on Petrochemicals & Climate Change, where he expounded on research done within the C-THRU project, funded by the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. In this project, the C-THRU team modelled GHG emissions for 81 chemicals and 2000 processes for 37,000 production facilities, to work out where to apply action to decarbonize the sector.
In his talk, Jonathan explained how the positive social and economic impacts of the petrochemical sector are accompanied by a huge environmental burden.
The chemical sector is responsible for:
➜ 30% of final industrial energy use
➜ 11% of global oil demand
➜ 10% of global natural gas demand
Chemical production emissions are currently at 2.0±0.8 GtCO2e in 2023, rising to 3.0±1.2 GtCO2e in 2050 for business as usual.
Total lifecycle emissions are estimated to be between 3% and 5% of global GHG emissions.
Cullen (2024) Nature Chem Eng, 1, 311–322.
Meng, Cullen, et al. (2024) Nature (under review)
26/09/24 | Annual General Meeting by Regeneration V, the ‘ReAssembly’
On the 26th September, Jonathan attended the Annual General Meeting hosted by Regeneration V, the ‘Reassembly’. Neutreeno, a start up that Jonathan is involved in, announced their $5 million financing, led by Regeneration . VC along with Remarkable Ventures Climate Fund (RVC), Closed Loop Partners, Prequel Ventures, Scania Invest and Beacon Venture Capital.
Neutreeno is a B2B SaaS deep-tech spinout from the University of Cambridge building the world’s first intelligent decarbonisation platform to eliminate global value chain emissions at source, without offsetting.
Pictured are founder Dr Spencer Brennan and Jonathan at the ReAssembly. You can read a featured article on Neutreeno’s Seed Round and work here.
Images: Jonathan Cullen, Neutreeno.
