As World Engineers gathered in Singapore for their Summit in Singapore earlier this month around the theme “Innovative and Sustainable solutions to Climate change”, the most heartening report on “connectivity” came not from an engineer but educational psychologist, conservationist and international President of WWF Yolanda Kakabadse. Meanwhile, as 191 member states gather to endorse new roadmap for sustainable global aviation progress under International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), comes the word that aviation’s record on lowering its emissions has been unmatched over the last several decades  and aircraft today are at least 80% more fuel efficient than they were in the 1960s. Read More

See and hear from Yolanda talked about in an interview for UBrainTv:

Ken Hickson reports from the World Engineers Summit:

Listening to Yolanda Kakabadse was like a breath of fresh air. Having endured hours and hours of engineered flag waving, politically-important speeches and engineers who had important things to say, but failed to effectively communicate, the WWF president put things succinctly and persuasively.

She did not lecture. She did not patronise. In plain speak, she conveyed this to me and a few hundred others on the first day of the summit.

It was all about the importance of connectivity. Surely an important scientific and engineering concept. Everything is connected. Just as sustainability and development must go together, so must energy and the environment. The world must wake up to reality and recognise that you cannot work in isolation.

There is so much good work being done in the world that there has to be a better way of sharing knowledge and learning from others.

What did others get from the lady with the key messages?

In a report for Green Business Times, Desmond Low, an environmental engineering student at the Nanyang Technological University, had this to say:

In the session chaired by Professor Tommy Koh, International President of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Ms Yolanda Kakabadse, focused on the importance of food and water security, the changing vectors and the interdependence of the environment and humans.

She proposed that the current challenge for engineers is to create more food with less water to achieve sufficient quality and quantity in food.

Also, the rising temperatures have caused disease-transmitting vectors to change behaviour and thus causing vaccines to lose their effectiveness. These factors would affect the poorer developing countries to a larger extent.

However, she was elated to share the good news that China has officially announced the ban of shark’s fin soup in all government events. She ended her session by urging the young engineers to proactively participate in non-profit organisations like WWF and play a part in contributing to the society as soon as possible.

Source:  www.greenbusinesstimes.com

Here’s the official wrap up report for media on the World Engineers Summit

Singapore – 20th September 2013: The World Engineers Summit 2013 (WES 2013) closed last Sunday after a fulfilling week of positive discussions amongst heavyweights of the engineering world. The three-day event, together with Build Eco Xpo (BEX) Asia and International Green Building Conference, was held from 11th to 13th September. Well over 800 delegates from 58 countries were in attendance at the Summit.

“We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this first World Engineers Summit. We received positive feedback from the participants, many of whom felt that they had learnt much from the sessions. I would like to thank the organising team for a job well done and I am also very grateful to our various partners, who supported us in so many different ways. I look forward to our next event in 2015,” said Er. Tan Seng Chuan, Chairman, WES 2013 Steering Committee.

Summit Highlights

At the WES-IGBC-BEX joint opening ceremony, which drew a packed audience, the Institution of Engineers, Singapore unveiled a Chartered Engineer accreditation programme – the country’s first – to provide professional recognition to qualified engineers across all sectors.

Following the opening ceremony, the Summit plenary session featured keynote addresses from leaders across the different sectors – from government to private industry to international non-governmental organisations – including Dr Bindu Lohani, Vice President, Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development, Asian Development Bank and Dr Roland Busch, Member of Managing Board and CEO, Asia Pacific and Infrastructure & Cities, Siemens AG. The session was chaired by Prof Tommy Koh, Ambassador-at-Large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore.

Prof Koh also chaired the Sustainability Leadership Forum which wrapped up the day’s programme. A compelling forum, it saw Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Singapore, calling for governments to play a role in seeking an ‘honest accounting’ of the impact of economic activities.

In addition, WES 2013 saw young aspiring engineers, from secondary to tertiary level, showcase ideas for sustainable solutions in a competition called “Trust Us, We Are Engineers”. Mr Lawrence Wong, Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, and Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information was the guest of honour at the finals held at Connexis, Fusionopolis@one-north. The top prize in the national category went to Singapore Polytechnic for developing a sugar cane bagasse board, where fibrous waste of sugarcane stems are recycled into boards resembling wooden furniture panels through a heat-pressing process.

At the Gala Dinner and Awards Presentation Night that closed the conference, organisers The Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES), gave out its Prestigious Engineering Achievement Awards to thirteen deserving teams. It also inaugurated a Lifetime Engineering Achievement Award, with the honour going to Emeritus Er. Prof Lee Seng Lip.

Over the three days of the conference, many issues pertaining to climate change and sustainability were discussed and numerous ideas shared. Er. Edwin Khew, who spoke on Singapore’s role as a springboard to the Asian cleantech market, remarked, “The World Engineers Summit 2013 is timely in addressing many of the issues that are responsible for climate change, and I feel that engineers can do much more in terms of mitigation and adaptation with respect to climate change.”

Delegates attending the WES 2013 also found the sessions to be informative and insightful.

“I have attended quite a few of the sessions here and found that they have provided a tremendous amount of knowledge into the challenges we face in fighting climate change today. I will return home with these new insights and look forward to sharing what I’ve learnt in terms of content and organisation with my colleagues and peers back home,” said Engr. Ademola Olorunfemi, Deputy President, The Nigerian Society of Engineers.

The next edition of the World Engineers Summit will be held in Singapore in 2015.

Source: www.wes2013.org

MONTRÉAL, 24 September 2013 – Over 1,400 delegates, representing the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) 191 Member States and major international and industry organizations, helped the UN specialized agency for aviation to successfully launch its 38th triennial Assembly today. Participating government Ministers and civil aviation officials will be discussing a range of critical global issues at ICAO over the next two weeks, many of them expected to impact how world States and operators will cooperatively manage the projected doubling of air transport traffic now expected by 2030.

“Rapid and dependable air transport connectivity remains essential to the socio-economic hopes and expectations of industries and peoples all over the world,” confirmed ICAO Council President Roberto Kobeh González. “Expanding our capacity from 100,000 to 200,000 flights daily in barely two decades poses significant challenges to aviation planners, from the standpoints of system safety, efficiency, security, economic viability and environmental stewardship. Businesses and travellers all over the world are looking to ICAO to help manage this process with little adverse impact on current service levels and this is precisely what our States are here to accomplish.”

An important priority at ICAO’s 38th Assembly will be the endorsement of revised global safety and air navigation plans. These have been developed between States and industry at a series of high-level ICAO consensus-building events held since 2011. The process has helped ICAO to confirm sector-wide operational performance targets to guide future technology development, a key component in how aviation expects to manage the coming capacity expansion without any sacrifice in terms of overall system safety or convenience.

In the area of aviation security, ICAO will be using the 38th Assembly to continue to drive momentum on the linkages now being drawn between how States and industry secure aircraft, passengers and cargo without creating bottlenecks and other obstructions to traveller convenience and trade flows. On the cargo side specifically, ICAO is now closely cooperating with the World Customs Organization (WCO) and cargo industry groups to achieve an effective security and facilitation solution governing the entire cargo supply chain.

ICAO Secretary General, Raymond Benjamin, who formerly headed up his organization’s aviation security branch, stressed that ICAO is focused on this area of activity given its current and direct impacts on global trade and basic traveller mobility.

“Over the past 70 years, aviation has been essential to expanding markets and creating tourism and other economic opportunities in every corner of the world,” Benjamin stressed. “Recent technological innovations, coupled with improved data sharing supporting more effective risk assessments, have created an opportunity where leadership and forward-looking standardization can permit us to improve on our well-established and effective security levels while greatly facilitating passenger and trade flows. We’ll therefore be looking to our States to firmly endorse our current priorities and planning at this Assembly so we can continue with this work.”

In the environmental area, ICAO has stressed repeatedly that aviation contributes just 2 per cent of global man-made greenhouse gas emissions each year and that approximately two thirds of this amount, or 1.3 per cent, are due to international flights.

The Organization’s States had previously set out a global aspirational goal for the sector of carbon neutral growth from 2020. To achieve this, a broad range of measures including operational refinements, alternative fuels, new technologies and improved government awareness and planning are being pursued. ICAO is progressing on all these fronts through the development of a CO2 standard for aircraft, the creation of guidance material on the environmental benefits of operational improvements and supporting progress on a globally-acceptable MBM solution for international flights, just to name a few of its environmental initiatives.

Since the last Assembly, the organization has engaged and collaborated with States to significantly improve capacity building, resulting in the development of Action Plans for CO2 emissions reduction activities by States. ICAO is also entering into partnerships for possible funding in support of Action Plan implementation.

“Aviation’s record on lowering its emissions has been unmatched over the last several decades,” stressed Benjamin. “Aircraft today are at least 80 per cent more fuel efficient than they were in the 1960s and sector-wide we continue to improve our emissions performance through a broad range of efforts. No other major industry sector can match this record.”

Elections to determine the State seats on the ICAO Council through 2016 will also be taking place at ICAO over the next two weeks. The 36-seat Council serves as ICAO’s governing executive body in the period between its triennial assemblies.

The ICAO 38th Assembly runs from 24 September through 4 October.

Source: www.icao.int