The Role of the Engineering Community in Addressing Climate Change

Climate change is real – the impacts are serious, and they are accelerating.

There is an urgent imperative for the Engineering Community ⁽¹⁾ to take informed and intentional actions now to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of a changing climate. It is our duty and purpose to contribute our skills and knowledge of human-centered technologies and of the natural world to lead humanity out of the climate crisis with a focus on sustainable, resilient, equitable, and innovative approaches.

Unless there are immediate, large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5°C will be beyond reach. The scientific evidence in the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ⁽²⁾ demonstrates the risks of climate change including the following.

(1) The “Engineering Community” includes engineers, scientists, technicians, technologists, computing and design professionals, and others engaged in the creation, implementation, maintenance, and regenerative lifecycles of technologies as well as the stewardship of the natural environment.

(2) IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report incorporated the work of 234 authors from 65 countries, 28% women and 72% men; included assessment of 14,000 scientific publications; and addressed 78,000+ review comments from 46 countries.

The Engineering Community is well positioned to take a leadership role on behalf of society to limit the impacts of climate change through both reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to a changing climate. Our responsibility as professionals takes on new meaning with this imperative to address climate change. Practitioners in the engineering community, both established and aspiring, must adopt a mindset that infuses climate change as a fundamental consideration for their work across all disciplines and economic sectors.

The Engineering Community can demonstrate this leadership role through contributions in the following areas:  

There is an urgent imperative for the Engineering Community to act now. In taking on the leadership roles described above, it is time to go beyond our traditional roles and increase our contributions as stewards of technology, of society, and of the natural world.

Signatories

We invite both individual members of the Engineering Community and organizations that are part of the Engineering Community to sign up in support of the “Noble Purpose” represented by the contents of this page. The intent of our request to sign up is to catalyze action within the Engineering Community to place a greater emphasis on addressing climate change in our work, both through reducing emissions and adaptation to our changing climate. By signing up you can demonstrate your support for this movement.