The Paris Agreement, a legally binding treaty, saw 196 signatory countries commit their focus to alleviate the global climate emergency in 2016. These signatures represent a worldwide attitude shift toward climate change, forcing green energy from ideology to real world application.
Achieving climate neutrality by 2050 will require mass advancement and implementation of technologies, science and infrastructure across all industries globally. Over the next few decades, many elements of daily life will have shifted in some way – our electricity, transportation, agriculture and architecture will all need to come from emission free sources. Policies and regulations will need to follow suit to ensure maximum efficiency for the roll out of this new carbon neutral world. These changes, in such a short time span, will be heavily money consuming. For this reason, larger and more economically developed countries (MEDCs) are set to lead the way – with many eyes fixed on Asia Pacific, and hydrogen.
Asia Pacific (APAC) is Earth’s most densely populated region, holding a 59.5% world share1. Considering this fact, it is unsurprising that the region is also the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter. In 2018, APAC’s carbon emissions totalled 16744.1 million tonnes, representing a 49.4% world share of total carbon emissions. The heaviest contributors to these figures were China, emitting 9428.7 million tonnes, and India, with 2479.1 million tonnes2.
Air quality has been a major issue across APAC countries for some time, with several areas across India and China categorised ‘hazardous to health’ by Real-time Air Quality Index3. Every industry sector contributes to these statistics, however, in 2019, APAC accounted for 48% of the global vehicle market, propelling the transport sector to a priority for change. In 2020, the Hydrogen Council stated its vision of 400 million cars, 20 million trucks and five million buses being powered by hydrogen. Pair this with APAC’s focus to decarbonise the transport sector, and the two go hand in hand4.
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