Imperial's global experts: New York Climate Week

A changing city.

“New York City is already starting to feel some of the impacts of global climate change, including extreme heat, extreme rainfall and chronic tidal flooding.” says Sara Hamilton Triana (MEng Chemical Engineering 2018), a Science, Technology and Policy Fellow for the Office of Carbon Management, part of the US Department of Energy.

It’s something alumni in the area are all too aware of, both professionally and personally. Professor Róisín Commane is an atmospheric chemist at Columbia University, leading the development of a measurement network for CO2 and methane around New York City. “Urban heat is definitely a problem. During the summer, I plan my routes so I can walk by the river, near trees, on the shady side of the street. It can be 20 Fahrenheit hotter if you move further into Harlem. We had one day of snow last year – we always used to have a white Christmas in New York. Our climate zone category has actually changed now to subtropical!”

What could New York look like in another ten years if nothing changes?

“In a not-so-unlikely scenario, underwater” says Fabio Scaffidi-Argentina (MSc Strategic Marketing 2021), a communications specialist with the Climate Champions team. “With global temperatures still on the rise, as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, sea levels are rising. Smaller islands, particularly in the Pacific, are already suffering from these consequences and are finding their sandy beaches closing into their front doors. With increasingly unstable weather patterns, losses of life and damages to our infrastructures are here and now. This is why at Climate Week NYC, all actors are supporting for stronger national climate plans, which governments are due to submit in 2025.”

Stephen Mushegan (MSc Sustainable Energy Futures 2012), climate tech startup consultant at The Ad Hoc Group, is only too aware of the threat of rising sea levels on the city.

Meet the alumni:

Professor Róisín Commane

MRes Biomolecular Sciences 2004
Associate Professor, Columbia University

I'm an atmospheric chemist at Columbia University, interested in longer-lived trace gases and the processes that drive how much of these gases we see in the atmosphere. I look at ecosystem interactions with the atmosphere in Arctic, mid-latitude and urban environments.

Recently I've been leading the development of a measurement network for CO2 and methane around New York City - working out how much CO2 and methane is coming out of the city and the sectors they are coming from. Our aim is to provide the data observations needed to support climate action.

Built into the fabric of the city.

Everyone agrees that one of the biggest issues the city faces is the buildings themselves. “New York City has already passed the Climate Mobilization Act, which requires all buildings larger than 25,000 square feet to meet ambitious carbon reduction targets beginning in 2024." says Sara. One of the opportunities for carbon management is in building decarbonisation. Converting CO2 captured from the air via carbon dioxide removal pathways to building materials could slash the embodied carbon footprint of buildings and even enable ‘carbon negative buildings’ in the city of the future.”

Are there ways to retrofit a solution?

Perhaps carbon negative buildings aren’t that far away. Antoinette Nothomb (MSc Innovation Entrepreneurship & Management 2023) and Emma Money, founders of award-winning startup, Cyanoskin, are also in New York for Climate Week. They have created an ingenious product that can help adapt existing buildings and infrastructure to meet the challenges of climate change.

Cyanoskin is an innovative algae-based living coating, which can be applied like a paint to transform buildings into carbon dioxide-absorbing structures. The team provide the building owners with live updates on how much carbon their wall is absorbing.

One of the reasons that Cyanoskin could work particularly well for cities like New York, where space is at a premium, is that it can be used on existing structures. And not only can buildings coated in Cyanoskin help to improve the air quality of the city, it’s also great news for the companies and landlords who own the buildings. Being carbon-neutral adds value to a building. It’s a unique selling point in a city full of real estate. There’s an incentive there beyond the desire for a healthier future for the planet.

Meet the alumni:

Sara Hamilton Triana

MEng Chemical Engineering 2018
Science, Technology and Policy Fellow
Office of Carbon Management, US Department of Energy

I work at the United States Department of Energy’s Office of Carbon Management, where we aim to advance research, development, demonstration, and deployment of CO2 capture from point sources or the atmosphere, CO2 utilisation, and CO2 transport and storage, for the purpose of mitigating climate change. These technologies are necessary to enable the hardest-to-decarbonise sectors to reach net zero, as well as to address legacy CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. I am also an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University, where I teach a course on the fundamentals of Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage.

Consider the wider impact of our ideas.

Buildings are doing more than just damaging the environment through carbon emissions – they also present a huge risk to the health of the people who live in them. Any solutions designed to improve them need to take a lot of other factors into account – as Róisín warns:

She’s concerned that moving to biomass fuels, for example burning wood instead of gas or coal, might seem like a good idea, and it certainly has benefits, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good solution for either the climate or for humans.

“Firstly, when you burn wood you’re releasing the carbon from 20 years ago that these trees absorbed. Plus, there’s particulate matter – anything you burn will release air pollutants, even if that’s not carbon. That builds up and if you don’t make sure your indoor spaces are ventilated, you’ll kill someone. We need to reduce the C02 emissions from buildings and make them more efficient but we also need to solve the ventilation problems.

“The law for buildings in New York is that you either have mechanical ventilation or you have a window, and that window doesn’t have to be by the stove. But nobody tells people moving to the city that they have to open a window when they cook. There’s a lot of transience here, a lot of people arriving who don’t know that the ventilation in their building is a problem. They put the fan on, but that’s designed to work with an induction stove and remove particulate matter, it does absolutely nothing to remove gases and keep them safe.”

“There’s very little funding in this area – my paid work is in outdoor air quality so I work on this pro bono. There was an interesting project run by We Act for Environmental Justice where they replaced gas stoves with induction stoves. The recipients loved the stoves and cleaner indoor air but the electrical system we have here often isn’t good enough for every stove to be replaced in a building. It’s an engineering problem with the electricity supply in the city that we need to look at.”

So, it’s not enough to consider the decarbonisation of buildings just in terms of construction processes or materials. There’s indoor air quality, there’s the energy that powers them, there’s the infrastructure that underpins them and the travel and city structures that connect them.

“We have the technology”, says Róisín, “but we need the right people in the room to be talking to each other”. That’s happening she says, but only in expensive new developments - “anywhere with money, it’s part of the conversation but if we’re not careful it will end up as a climate justice issue."

Meet the alumni:

Antoinette Nothomb

MSc Innovation Entrepreneurship & Management 2023
COO and Co-Founder, Cyanoskin

I’m the co-founder of Cyanoskin, a living paint that can transform buildings into carbon dioxide-absorbing structures. We started almost two years ago when I met Emma Money, who became my co-founder, at a climate entrepreneurship club at Imperial. Both of us arrived with the idea of wanting to finish university with a startup in our hands. She came up with the algae coating and I brought the understanding of carbon credits and the carbon market to the mix. Later on, we started working with the Grantham Institute and Hackspace at White City, and then we won Imperial’s Venture Catalyst Challenge. There was cash, lab space, mentorship, connections, a pilot... I could list 20 things that are key to our business that were given to us by Imperial.

There's no magic bullet.

It’s easy to feel disheartened thinking about the scale of the challenges ahead of us. How can we as individuals make a difference, what can our companies and institutions do?

Well firstly, don’t pin our hopes on a single magic solution. Claire says, “It’s not just one technology coming in and providing all the solutions. It’s also rethinking the way we design our cities and live in those cities. Hydrogen can be used everywhere but you don’t want to use it in areas where other solutions make more sense.”

She urges us to stay engaged, because nothing will change without individuals - “We need to understand that each small step counts."

Look at the big picture.

“It's easy to get excited about all the ideas that are shared during Climate Week” says Stephen. There’s so much energy around solving the problem with climate tech, a feeling of ‘give us the money and we can make it happen!’ It's exciting, but on the flipside, there’s maybe not enough discussion anymore about the climate crisis itself. It gets a little lost and we can’t lose sight of the reality and the scale of the problem we’re trying to address."

Fabio agrees that a solution goes beyond addressing one issue at a time. We need to think bigger. “Pointing a giant vacuum cleaner towards the sky to directly suck out and capture carbon from the atmosphere is still a nascent solution that will make a select number of investors enjoy their economic, social and environmental riches."

As Róisín explains: “We need to be careful, to think things through. I hear a lot about AI being the future of climate solutions but what about the energy required to power that? At the moment, AI doesn’t help the climate because of the sheer amount of energy required to run it. The CO2 we’re emitting right now lasts in the atmosphere for 100 years. If we’re emitting CO2 while creating new power plants to support AI, then it’s not a solution. We need to stop emitting carbon. We have the technology to do that, and focusing on the wrong things, increasing emissions to power AI, it’s undermining all the work we’re already doing.”

Meet the alumni:

Claire Burtin

MSc Sustainable Energy Futures 2016
Head of Strategy & Planning – North America, John Cockerill Hydrogen

John Cockerill Hydrogen is one of the largest manufacturers of electrolysers worldwide (the equipment required to produce hydrogen using only water and electricity). We’re headquartered in Belgium with manufacturing facilities in China and Europe. Since 2023 we’ve had offices in the US and we’ve acquired a site to build a manufacturing facility here in the US.

In my role, I focus on strategic market analysis, helping the company to craft a tailored strategy for the North American market. This includes identifying key customer needs, evaluating whether our existing products meet market demands, and closely monitoring government regulations and incentives to ensure our approach aligns with evolving policy landscapes.

Make it worth their while.

Incentive is important, particularly in the US market, explains Claire Burtin (MSc Sustainable Energy Futures 2016). Claire is the Head of Strategy & Planning for North America at John Cockerill Hydrogen.

She describes the US as being behind the curve when it comes to development and investment in green hydrogen initiatives, particularly when compared against Europe. “But the US is catching up – I was quite impressed to see the speed of development in North America in just a few years. It’s very different than in Europe because of the level of risk and investment people are willing to make. The Department of Energy is funding a lot of hydrogen initiatives now, and they have more money to dedicate to this sector than is available in Europe.”

A key difference Claire has noticed between the European and US energy markets has been the drive, or lack of it, from big businesses as well as individuals to make changes that might help the planet but are also inconvenient, or not immediately profitable.

“In Europe, everyone is talking about climate change and how you can reduce your carbon footprint and I feel that people care at an individual level. There’s also a push from governments, so companies are changing their behaviour to match that expectation from both individuals and government. They’re more willing to take risks and enter this business even if it’s not super profitable to begin with because they know that’s what’s needed to make the whole thing happen. Everyone needs to do their part to tackle climate change."

“We’ve seen it beginning with the Inflation Reduction Act - where the government have offered to subsidise hydrogen production for ten years, enough time to build a whole industry. But even with that, the business case is hard. It’s difficult to be better than grey hydrogen or less clean alternatives so it’s hard to convince companies to make the change if no one is ready to pay a premium for clean solutions. In the US, if there are no incentives or mandatory emission reduction requirements for specific industries, they are more likely to wait rather than act now.”

Fabio agrees that companies need to step up. “As of 2024, 84% of listed companies have yet to make a decarbonisation commitment. We must not overlook small and medium-sized enterprises. Making up 70% of global employment and 50% of global GDP, they also emit more than 50% of the world’s emissions. The barriers they are facing in reducing their emissions and building resilience to climate shocks mainly turns around capacity building, supportive leadership, radical business collaborations."

“Championed by the COP29 Presidency, our ‘Climate-proofing SMEs’ campaign launched at Climate Week NYC this year will focus around three objectives. Firstly, increasing access for SMEs to tailored resources. Secondly, mobilising and showcasing these actors as climate leaders, and thirdly calling on large organisations to support those involved in their value chains."

Meet the alumni:

Fabio Scaffidi-Argentina 

MSc Strategic Marketing 2021
Communications Specialist, Climate Champions Team
Guest lecturer, ESG Strategy, MSc Management, Imperial College London

My team supports the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions in driving ambitious climate action by connecting the work of governments with all other actors — cities, regions, business, investors, civil society and many more. Mandated by the Paris Agreement, they are appointed each year by the respective Presidency of the UN climate conference (‘COP’). The current Champions are Razan al Mubarak and Nigar Arpadarai, whose work programme spreads from leading the largest decarbonisation coalition, Race to Zero, to supporting local communities with direct financing mechanisms to help them bounce back from climate shocks. From media engagement to inspiring storytelling, my role is to support on all things communications.

City experience provides a perfect case study.

“From dealing with extreme heat in urban areas to investing in flood resistant infrastructure, cities are climate action leaders” says Fabio. “By 2025, mayors across the world are being called on to implement planning policy that favours reuse, retrofit and green infrastructure, and requires emissions minimisation and resilience in built environment projects. The business sector can support this by ensuring emissions reduction, circular design and built-in resilience are prioritised in all financial and procurement decisions.”

As an individual, it’s hard to know where to pitch your voice. Aim too big and you won’t get heard, aim too small and we’re not making a difference. What does Stephen suggest? “There’s so much great work happening at city and state level. The beauty of the localised and federalist system that we have in the US is that you can pass initiatives at a smaller level. A lot of things that have now become federal climate policy didn’t start that way – in fact there was no climate action at a federal level at all during the years Trump was president – but during that time advocates targeted states instead, and they stood up. California, Washington, New York, Massachusetts – advocates pushed really hard for much more aggressive net zero policies and when we eventually had a favourable congress, we had the case studies and examples ready to show how it can work."

Finding the right people to talk to is something Stephen is well-versed in. A large part of his role is helping startups navigate regulatory policy (which can change from city to city, state to state) and to figure out who their key partners should be, who are the utilities they should be talking to, how to move things forward. It’s the kind of bureaucracy that can be impenetrable for an entrepreneur with a great idea and a new product.

It’s a problem familiar to Antoinette. “One of the biggest barriers we face with Cyanoskin is working out the regulatory aspects, both of the coating itself and of the carbon credit market. Once our paint has been applied to a building, we provide an app that gives the company live updates on how much carbon the wall is absorbing. We then sell the competitive value of the carbon absorbed back to the owner of the building - so we need to be sure we can certify our carbon. When it comes to selling the carbon, there's a regulated market which operates at country level and then a voluntary carbon credit market which you can access as a company, but it’s completely unregulated.”

Regulation and policy can’t keep up with the speed that new technology is being developed, so we need people like Stephen to help make sense of how it all fits together if we stand a chance of turning creative new ideas into reality.

Meet the alumni:

Stephen Mushegan

MSc Sustainable Energy Futures 2012
Climate tech startup consultant, The Ad Hoc Group

I'm a Senior Associate at The Ad Hoc Group, a boutique growth advisory firm that helps climate-tech startups bring their solutions to market and scale successfully.

We support startups, mainly those at Series A or Series B stage, work out how to take their product to market. We help them work out where the incentives or barriers are, how to understand the market at a state or city level, how to navigate regulatory policy, who to meet. We’re able to facilitate warm introductions and prepare them to have successful sales conversions.

We function as startup operators ourselves – we're not arm’s length consultants, we’re embedded as part of the startup team. We don’t just make recommendations, we take on the execution too.