Simon Jones: A sustained effort

This week’s SEE Summit on sustainability in optics almost felt like a watershed moment for the industry. If there was any doubt as to the seriousness of the global problem, the talk given by the government’s Special Representative for Climate Change, Nick Bridge, should have quickly seen it off.

Bridge was looking ahead to the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow later this month and outlined the perilous position the world finds itself in, and the delicate situation the world’s leaders find themselves in, because fairness has to feature in climate pledges. For example, it would be very easy to look at China, which is predicted to be responsible for roughly half of the world’s future emissions and say, ‘it needs to do more in future.’ You’d be right, but in the wider timeline of industrialisation, it has only been a bit part player when compared to the heavily industrialised western world, which is accountable for 200 years of pollution.