Carbon emissions from research are the price we must pay to understand the world

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the Climate change myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

The writer is professor in computational space physics at the University of Helsinki. She is chair of the board of Technology Academy Finland, which awards the Millennium Technology Prize

I was shocked to learn recently that some scientists want to scale back their research in an effort to decrease carbon emissions. I discovered this when I was sitting on a panel discussing sustainable space activities and my colleagues’ concerns about their contribution to global warming was palpable. The crisis is here, they said, and we need to cut back on our energy intensive modelling. At the very least, we need to make our energy use far more sustainable.

It is unarguable that our laboratories, scientific instruments, rockets and satellites — the tools we scientists need to measure the planet’s pulse — demand significant amounts of energy both in their construction and operation. And it is equally true that science’s unrelenting appetite for information has caused a mushrooming of energy-intensive data centres around the world. According to the International Energy Agency, these buildings now consume about 1 per cent of the world’s electricity.

However, this is a price we must pay for understanding the world. How can we inform decision makers about the best ways to bring down carbon emissions if we can’t track the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, where it’s coming from and who’s producing it? The carbon emissions from technological research are well spent: ultimately this research will safeguard the future of our planet. 

It can be hard for scientists to make the case because our work is complex, often takes place behind closed doors and does not always lend itself to easy interpretation or explanation. But demonstrating the efficacy of science will be crucial if we are to solve humanity’s greatest challenges. It is all too easy to feel paralysed in the face of daunting problems such as climate change and to do nothing. But then I think of a friend’s daughter who turned her fears into action: she became a wind energy engineer and now thrives on delivering renewable energy, limiting emissions.

Recognising the hope that science and engineering can bring was the impetus behind the creation of the Millennium Technology Prize, which is now entering its 20th year as a celebration of human ingenuity. One of the past winners, Professor Martin Green from the University of New South Wales, Australia, is the inventor of the Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell technology which is now found in most of the world’s solar panels. Thanks to his invention, we have a real chance to decrease the world’s carbon emissions.

Every day, scientists, technologists and engineers are discovering new ways to exploit renewable energy sources and develop techniques not just to use power more intelligently but to power our intelligence. A great example of this is Europe’s largest supercomputer, LUMI in Finland, which is astonishingly carbon-negative. Established in an old paper mill, it is powered by a nearby river and its remote heat warms the people who live in the surrounding town of Kajaani.

In LUMI we see a vision we will need to draw on as the anxiety exhibited by some of my colleagues about their carbon footprint increases. AI, 3D rendering, the metaverse — technologies that will yield huge benefits to humanity — all require vast amounts of energy. If the world is to meet its net-zero ambitions, we must think hard about how we can deliver sustainable computing and deliver more LUMIs. 

This message is beginning to resonate. Sustainable computing will be a key theme when the world’s business leaders and politicians meet later this month at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It is easy in a fragmenting world to focus on the losses and not on the gains. But science can help us find an equilibrium — to find hope.