How to Apply Learnings from Japanese Bullet Train Thinking to "Act Fast" in Climate Crisis

To understand the story behind Japanese Bullet Train thinking, we need to go back to 1958 when Japanese Government ordered their Japanese Railways (JR) to come up with a quickest way to travel between Tokyo and Osaka. JR Engineers took this as a challenge and came up with a proposal a few months later with a train that can travel up to 100 km/hour speed which could be fastest train at that time if it was approved. To their surprise, Japanese Government mentioned to their JR engineers, we need a train twice as fast as your proposal. Shocked with the response from the Japanese Government with the speeds of 200 km/hour which could only be imagined in sci-fi movies, JR engineers undertook an impossible project and lifetime mission as the Government said they can spend how much ever money needed to make this a reality. 

The engineers understood that to reach unimaginable speeds of 200 km/hour ambitious future train, a completely different way of thinking and systemic changes are required on a) shape width and height of the train track used thus for b) a new infrastructure needed to cut through the mountain Fuji with tunnels c) reimagine the concept of “a train” that people have in mind so far with a complete overhaul to its design with a light weight and better air resistance model applying good aerodynamic principles. In 1964 during Tokyo Olympics, the first ever fastest train travelled between Tokyo and Osaka in record 3 hour 10 mins at speeds greater than 200 km/hour from the earlier time of 6 hours and 40 minutes, a rare feat achieved in 6 years. The world looked at Japan and their engineering marvel with an astonishment when Hikari (the train name with a meaning the light) took on Shinkansen (new trunk line in Japan) between Tokyo and Osaka, marking the first ever fastest high-speed train in human history. Both Hikari train and Shinkansen Line combined is what the world famously recognise as “The Japanese Bullet Train”. You can refer to more such amazing stories from Japan in the book “The IKIGAI Journey” A Practical Guide to Finding Happiness and Purpose the Japanese Way.

Fast forward to today, how do we apply these learnings from Japanese Bullet Train or Shinkansen thinking in today’s climate crisis is quintessential for the survival of all living beings on planet earth in this deciding decade. According to Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), the largest ever body on climate change with 86 authors and editors from 39 countries, with a global scientific community participation that produced a special report Global Warming of 1.5 says “Limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels would require transformative systemic change, integrated with sustainable development. Such change would require the upscaling and acceleration of the implementation of far- reaching, multilevel and cross-sectoral climate mitigation and addressing barriers.” Seems like the world needs another Japanese Engineering Marvel to tackle climate crisis with the trajectory of its future aiming towards  keeping 1.5°C warming alive, boarding on yet another high-speed train for sustainable development, ironically pulling it through in same time frame of 6 years that JR engineers did 6 decades ago in an another seemingly impossible mission.

Where are we heading as of today?

As per 2015 Paris agreement more than 190 countries pledged to keep global warming at 1.5°C compared to pre-industry level by the end of the 21^st century. All the countries also agreed with nationally determined contribution (NDCs) with Net Zero Strategies pledging for reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHG). As per the IPCC 6^th Assessment report with 67% likelihood of keeping warming at 1.5°C, estimated remaining carbon budget is 400 gigatons (Gt) of CO_2. MCC research taking IPCC assessment on carbon budget as base “the Annual emissions of CO₂ – from burning fossil fuels, industrial processes and land-use change – are estimated to be 42.2 Gt per year, the equivalent of 1,337 tonnes per second.”  As per the MCC carbon clock we have 6 years and 3 months left at the current rate to consume all carbon budget if the emissions were at constant rate. IPCC in their latest report make it very clear that “Global GHG emissions in 2030 implied by nationally determined contributions (NDCs) announced by October 2021 make it likely that warming will exceed 1.5°C during the 21st century and make it harder to limit warming below 2°C. There are gaps between projected emissions from implemented policies and those from NDCs and finance flows fall short of the levels needed to meet climate goals across all sectors and regions”. With the current rate of emissions as explained in the video we are heading towards 3.5°C  by the end of 21^st Century.

Source: Just Have a Think, Youtube Channel

The humanity ship as Dave puts it in his video, need to take sharp turn from where we are heading now with a major direction change to what seems an extremely unlikely to reach the path ways of 2°C or 1.5°C as per Paris agreement. Unless we take rapid, systemic changes across the sectors and regions like our Japanese friends did we are on course to the climate catastrophe.

Source: Just Have a Think, Youtube Channel

What are the major contributors to GHG emission and Climate Crisis?

There are many but 3 major sectors which contributes to more than 50% of GHG emission are fossil fuels, food industry and building & transport or as described in the book “The Carbon Almanac” The Four Horsemen of Carbon Apocalypse: Coal, Combustion, Cows and Concrete projected to account for 70% of our climate change problems.

Fossil fuels:

World’s primary energy source is still fossil fuels and as of 2021 >80% comes from fossil fuels. But IPCC and International Energy Agency (IEA) repeatedly warning, there should be no new fossil fuel development beyond that of what is committed in 2021 if we want to keep 1.5°C target alive. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and few other leading research institutes conducted gap analysis and produced 2021 production gap report which says “despite increased climate ambitions and net-zero commitments, governments still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than what would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C”

Source: Our World in Data

Fossil Fuel subsidies are the reason for continued development which comes up with lot of cost in terms of consuming a lot of revenue in GDP causing burden to economic growth, encouraging pollution which leads climate change and up to 7 million premature deaths per year due to air pollution and not well targeted to benefit poor rather giving a licence for higher income groups to spend more and businesses to profit. 

Source: International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Fossil fuel subsidies can be explicit or implicit. Explicit subsidies include producers of coal, oil, and gas getting tax breaks and land or loans at lower interest rate at one hand and for consumers at the other hand to keep the actual price artificially lower compared to market price. The Implicit subsidies are the one not included in retail price consumer pay at pump which include components like impact of air / particulate pollution damaging local health, climate change impacts, road congestion and accidental impacts etc., Below representation from International Monitor Fund (IMF) explains how an external price for gasoline at $0.3 / litre could be $1.25 socially optimum and efficient price.

As per IEA, an estimated $1 trillion consumer subsidies double compared to 2021 and an additional $500 Billion was spent in advanced countries in 2022 ($350 Billion in Europe) to keep energy bills in control. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and IEA analysis suggests that overall support for fossil fuel in 51 countries doubled post COVID in 2021 with $335 Billion more compared to 2020. As per IMF The share of explicit subsidies is just 8% while 92% are contributed by implicit subsidies, 

“Globally, fossil fuel subsidies are were $5.9 trillion or 6.8 percent of GDP in 2020 and are expected to increase to 7.4 percent of GDP in 2025 as the share of fuel consumption in emerging markets (where price gaps are generally larger) continues to climb.”

Source: International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Source: IMF

Reforms on subsidies can be challenging to communicate with normal people and get their support, it require political leadership in governments as it might increase inflation rates and create an impression as lack of competitiveness,  but there are successful case studies where a lot of governments that understood the full extent of subsidies, channelled it to right people for social benefiting schemes or reformed it to remove gradually to invest in greener technologies. Fossil Fuel Reforms on subsidies should have proper planning to execute it efficiently as they have a potential to reduce GHG emissions drastically. As per IMF 

 

“Raising fuel prices to their fully efficient levels reduces projected global fossil fuel CO2 emissions 36 percent below baseline levels in 2025—or 32 percent below 2018 emissions. This reduction is in line with the 25-50 percent reduction in global GHGs below 2018 levels needed by 2030 to be on track with containing global warming to the Paris goal of 1.5-2°C”

Latest developments in US by allowing Willow oil drilling at 3 sites in Alaska and advancements to open new oil development at Rosebank North Sea in UK despite an urge from 700 scientists for the UK to halt the progression has got sharp criticism on much expected “Green day” turned out to be “Energy Security day” potentially favouring new oil drilling at North Sea. Hopefully the developed countries like the US and UK take the lead in climate action and listens to what various experts, scientist and energy agencies are asking for “The OECD and IEA have consistently called for the phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel support and re-direction of public funding toward the development of low-carbon alternatives alongside improvements in energy security and energy efficiency.” The provisions to hand back 91p out of every pound for oil and gas industries if they reinvest their profits in local oil developments in UK are certainly not in right direction for fight against climate change which are not available for renewables which are need of the hour.

With record breaking profits by Big oil companies in 2022 totalling beyond $200 Billion dollars, the outlook for the investments in renewables is not even 5% of the total expenditure, even worse companies like BP have scaled down their emissions target and mentions it would miss reduction targets for oil and gas production by 2030. Major investigation from The Guardian on 195 projects from 15 big oil companies with millions of $ investment / day not only make it difficult to meet Net Zero by 2050 but also miss our chance to limit 2°C global warming limits as these are incompatible with even 2.7°C warming. Guardian calls them as “carbon bombs” as 60% of which have already started pumping and they would release billions of tonnes of CO2 in their lifetime which is almost equivalent to 18 years of current global emissions.

The progress and direction we are heading is completely towards climate crisis, and it requires systemic changes at policy, political, bureaucratic, public and finance systems level to bring the green transition quicker away from fossil fuels. A study from the Stanford suggests that 100% transition to Wind-Water-Solar (WWS) is possible with upfront costs of $61.5 trillion with a fast payback of $6 T / year within 6 years and only require <0.5% of global land and space. 145 countries studied in this research estimated that it can create 28.4 million new jobs with more than 95% technology needed to implement is already available commercially. New Oxford Martin School study backed up the conclusions from Stanford study mentioning complete transition to decarbonized energy by 2050 could save the world $12 Trillion than the current use of fossil fuels. 

There is a great story from Danish Oil and Natural Gas (DONG) Energy green transition on how their electricity production reduced to <30% from fossil fuel in 2021 from where they started as Oil giant in 2009. They renamed their company to Ørsted after a Danish scientist based on their remarkable green transformation using wind energy and they are world leader in providing 16% of global offshore wind energy today. Listen in to Ørsted CEO talking at UN Climate Action Summit 2019 on their Green Transformation. It is also fascinating to see the innovative ideas like energy islands from Denmark with major investments and move towards green transformation away from fossil fuels.

Source: OurEden, Youtube Channel, DONG to Ørsted: The Oil Giant That Turned Green

Since Exxon scientists studied the facts about climate change 40 years ago and ex-NASA scientist James Hansen testimony in US congress 35 years, we have been hearing a lot about “Act Now” message but what we should do is “Act Fast” like our Japanese friends did with their rapid pace development of bullet train to stop the climate catastrophe and increase chances of survival of all life forms on planet earth in our life time not before end of 21st century.

 

Let’s see the impact of Food, Transport & Building sectors in Part 2.