Blog by Dr Peter Matthews, past president of CIWEM and former Chair of Natural Resources Wales

COP26 is fast approaching, bringing with it – we hope – all the attention and urgency the climate crisis requires. We see it in the news, we read it in IPCC reports – but it’s not (exclusively) through academic study, flip charts and ‘men in grey suits’ that we will deliver the change required to address the crisis.

Instead, we need to turn to an under-rated weapon – storytelling. It might just be our most powerful ally against this particularly fearsome foe.

And with that in mind, let me add a chapter to water industry’s story of climate action – a chapter that perfectly highlights the mutual benefits possible when addressing the climate challenge.

I recently wrote a CIWEM post about the importance of aligning policy with priority when it comes to biosolids, building on a longer exposition on the future of biosolids which is on Linkedin. Both of those are built on a story that is as old as the hills themselves – literally. Namely, the carbon cycle.

We know almost all the planet’s carbon is locked in the ground – carbonates, oils, coal and the like – things often referred to as ‘hard carbon’. What remains is split between the biosphere including oceans, and the air – ‘soft carbon’.

Basic science tells us the carbon cycle incorporates a series of processes by which carbon compounds are interconverted in the environment. This involves the incorporation of carbon dioxide into living tissue by photosynthesis, and its return to the atmosphere through respiration and the decay of dead organisms, expelling both methane and carbon dioxide.

The oceans also absorb atmospheric carbon. However, there are concerns that as CO2 absorption increases, so does the acidity of water, which can negatively impact marine life. Coral being a case in point.

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