02 12 2024 at 15:45
Reflections on an increasingly eventful Climate
Since my last article (3 months ago) the pattern of Climate Change related extreme weather events has sadly continued, if not accelerated, as predicted by climate science.
With a disappointing outcome from the recent COP29 in Azerbaijan, it would be easy to feel discouraged about the prospects for anything like the level of commitment and funding we need towards either mitigation of Climate Change or adaptation to Climate Change.
Whilst I share the disappointment, recent world events have reinforced for me that we can't "stand back" and hope that governments will fix this for us. Whilst we should continue to push for international and national policy change, we clearly cannot leave this to governments and so the best way forward is for us all to do what we can to tackle this crisis.
We can take personal action, but we can be much more impactful through our roles as project professionals, and even more impactful if we do this together as the project professional community and as members of the PMI.
Recent Climate Change related events
Unfortunately, there are many examples that I could share from the last 3 months about disasters caused by extreme weather, made more likely by Climate Change.
These events include:
Date |
Event |
Impacted region |
Impact |
Link |
14 - 21 Sep 2024 |
Storm Boris |
Central / Eastern Europe, specifically Austria, Czechia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary |
27 fatalities 9 missing >€2Bn damage |
|
24 - 29 Sep 2024 |
Hurricane Helene |
South-Eastern USA |
234 fatalities 26 missing >$89Bn damage |
|
26 - 29 Sep 2024 |
Extreme monsoon, poor infrastructure & planning |
Nepal |
>300 fatalities >50 missing >€120M damage |
|
29 Oct - 16 Nov 2024 |
Isolated low-pressure area at high level |
Spain (specifically Levante region) |
229 fatalities 5 missing >€3.5Bn damage |
There have, of course, been many more events globally.
The event in Spain was particularly significant as the "blocked" weather system led to 1 years’ worth of rain falling in one day, with catastrophic impact.
This year in Belgium will be the wettest ever, as announced by the Belgian weather service (KMI), and this is just up to the end of November! By the end of December, it is likely that records will significantly be exceeded. It is interesting to note that this is due to the high number of days with heavy rainfall - an indicator of more extreme weather (again as predicted by climate science).
COP29
COP29 took place 11 - 24 Nov 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. This is the key annual event where nations come together to review progress on Climate Mitigation and Adaptation, the need for progress was high; however, the conference outcomes have left many disappointed.
Countries failed to reach an agreement on how the outcomes of last year’s “global stock-take”, including a key pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, should be taken forward.
“Developed” nations have agreed to help channel “at least” $300bn a year into developing countries by 2035 to support their efforts to deal with climate change; however, the talks nearly collapsed as developing nations were expecting 4 times this total, in line with IPCC reports.
The talks were marred from the start with the conference president being accused of promoting the oil & gas interests of Azerbaijan. Subsequently there were reports of the presidency allowing a Saudi Arabian delegate to make direct changes to a negotiating text being circulated, a violation of the normal conference protocol.
One area of agreement related to carbon markets - hence finalising all elements of the Paris Agreement (however, this was 10 years after the original agreement and clearly not at the pace required to meet the Paris Agreement targets).
One highlight from COP29 was a tremendous speech from a true climate leader: Al Gore (well worth spending 4 mins to watch this summary video).
It is becoming increasingly clear that the "COP" process alone is not adequate to drive the required change, at the required rate; whilst non state actors were always going to have to do a lot, that burden is clearly increasing as COP fails to make the required progress.
Climate Fresk
One way in which we can act is through raising awareness of Climate Change.
The PMI European cross-chapter Climate Fresk initiative has progressed throughout 2024 with monthly cross-chapter workshops in addition to many workshops organised within chapters. We have seen a total of 145 attendees, across 26 PMI chapters with member attendance split as follows:
In PMI Belgium Chapter, we started 2024 well with a face-to-face workshop back in February. It would be great to see more PMI Belgium "Freskers" - especially given the overall strength of the Climate Fresk movement in Belgium (in second place globally after France, with ~39k workshop attendees and 2,079 facilitators in Belgium).
You have a further opportunity to attend a cross-chapter Climate Fresk workshop on 12 Dec 2024, online from 18:00 -21:00 CET:
- The key benefit for you, as a project professional, will be to understand the power of projects to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
- There will be no registration feefor the 12 Dec event (and PMI credential owners can claim 3 PDUs.)
- The workshop builds an understanding of climate science through an interactive system-building game, concluding with a discussion of actions that can be taken at system and individual level to assist the global shift to address climate change.
- The workshop condenses ~6000 pages of “climate science” into an impactful and fun 3-hour workshop.
- The "Fresk" is a visual map of the causes and consequences of climate change. You will build this in collaboration with other PMI members.
- Attendees leave the workshop with a real understanding of how to contribute to climate action, personally, and as a project professional.
- You can find out more through this short introductory video.
- You can register for the 12 Dec workshop here.
- We are planning multiple parallel workshop sessions, so there should be plenty of capacity to welcome you.
Discounted Carbon Flow
In September I had the privilege to present a ProjectManagement.com webinar: "Tackling the Climate Crisis with Discounted Carbon Flow".
I was delighted to get 620 live event attendees as well as many views of the video, with strong feedback ratings:
I welcome your feedback (via stuart.thorp@pmi-belgium.be).
In the webinar, I summarised the 6 articles that I had published via PMIstandards+ concluding with: "Discounted Carbon Flow: A Worked Example for Selecting Renewable Energy Solutions"
I believe that I will be able to make a bigger personal impact through my contribution to PMI's global standards, where I have enjoyed great teamwork with the PMI Global team during 2024; I was also delighted to receive their recognition.
Hence, from the end of 2024, I will be focusing on PMI global standards and stepping down from my leadership of the PMI European Climate Fresk initiative.
Specifically, I see a tremendous opportunity with the 2025 revision of PMI's flagship "Project Management Body of Knowledge" (PMBOK(R)). I aim to contribute to the Draft Comment Period (which I understand starts from Dec 2024) from the perspective of encouraging project professionals globally to consider their projects from an environmental / sustainability perspective. I encourage you to do likewise.
Some good news...
Back in April, I recorded a PMI Benelux "PM Untold" episode "Responding to the Climate Crisis as a PM".
In that podcast, I mentioned that one of my "climate heroes" is a Country Director in a global technical services company, who is actively leading sustainability related initiatives in the company.
The latest good news is that I attended a meeting 21 Nov, in which we ran Climate Fresk workshops for the Group leadership team and obtained support for Climate Fresk to be rolled out across the organisation Globally.
Given that this organisation supports some of the most significant projects on the planet, the impact could be major.
This has happened because of the courage of one leader to "do the right thing", and I think is a great example for leaders and managers everywhere.
Conclusion
I like to share a positive message about the Climate Crisis; that's not always easy.
I come back to Greta Thunberg's tremendous words:
"Yes, we do need hope - of course we do.
But the one thing we need more than hope is action.
Once we start to act, hope is everywhere."
Let's act together and feel positive together, knowing that we are doing what we can to tackle the Climate Crisis.
I wish you a wonderful end of 2024, and an enjoyable holiday period.
My next article will probably be 3 months from now, so I take this opportunity to already wish you a happy, healthy, sustainable and impactful 2025!
------- previous article for context -----
Tackling the Climate Crisis in the PMI
Author: Stuart Thorp