Death to fossil fuel?

If any good can come from the tragedy of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it will be the death of fossil fuels and birth of mass global decarbonisation.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres has said that “fossil fuels are a dead end”, adding that the Ukrainian war highlights how vulnerable these fuels have made the global economy and energy security, a problem solvable only by a “prompt, well-managed transition to renewables”. 

Europe has been hit particularly hard: 25% of EU oil imports and nearly 50% of its gas come from Russia. Commentators note that profits from these have helped Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, amass the “war chest” he is using to finance his attacks on Ukraine.

“Such weaponisation of fossil fuels on top of climate change shows we must dramatically improve energy resilience and cut carbon emissions as fast as technology allows,” said  decarbonisation champion Michael Jansen after the UN secretary general’s comments. “When oil majors like Shell also renounce their links with Russia, that can only accelerate the process,” added the World Economic Forum Top 100 Global Innovator*, who is also founder and CEO of pioneering digital twin technology company Cityzenith.

Cityzenith’s SmartWorldOS digital twin platform is already deployed in a “Clean Cities – Clean Future” initiative the company launched last year.

The initiative aims to dramatically cut emissions in individual buildings and sections of 10 major US cities including Las Vegas, New York, and Phoenix over the next year. The plan is to expand the platform to 300 cities internationally over the next five years.

“A SmartWorldOS digital twin of any building, infrastructure (such as a transport network or energy grid), or even a whole city can identify many ways to streamline and transform the energy resilience of our built environment,” Jansen explains.

“ABI Research forecast that digital twins for urban planning would yield US$280 billion in global cost savings by 2030, while Ernst and Young reported digital twins can reduce carbon emissions in urban areas by 50 to 100%, cut operating costs for building asset owners by 35%, and boost productivity by 20%.

“Digital twins can use data sensors in the physical world to create what we define as our real-world metaverse where we can in turn track, simulate, and monitor our own world and massively drive down the use of energy,” he continues.

“This has huge applications for oil and gas, energy transition, buildings, and infrastructure, but a Cityzenith digital twin real-world metaverse can have its greatest success with cities, urban areas, and even individual buildings,” Jansen expands. “This is crucial when cities contribute 60% of greenhouse gas emission while consuming 78% of the world’s primary energy.”

*Cityzenith is a World Economic Forum Top 100 Global Innovator, with Michael Jansen named as a Global Excellence Award Top 40 CEO for 2021 alongside Unilever’s Alan Jope and VaynerX Chairman Gary Vaynerchuk.