The war could be a powerful locomotive pulling and incentivising us to decarbonise even faster, with consequent massive savings and efficiencies within our urban environments, says decarbonisation champion Michael Jansen

If any good can come from the tragedy of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, it will be speeding the end of over-reliance on oil and gas and stimulating mass global decarbonisation.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said: 'Fossil fuels are a dead end' with the Ukrainian war highlighting how vulnerable oil and gas has made the global economy and energy security – a problem solvable only by 'prompt, well-managed transition to renewables,' he added.

Europe has been hit particularly hard: 25 per cent of EU oil imports and nearly 50 per cent of its gas come from Russia and commentators note how profits from these have helped Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, amass the ‘war chest’ to finance his designs on Ukraine.

Digital Twins for urban planning would yield $280 billion in global cost savings by 2030

'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,' says decarbonisation champion Michael Jansen – a World Economic Forum Top 100 Global Innovator – and Founder and CEO of pioneering Urban Digital Twin technology company Cityzenith.

'When oil majors like Shell renounce their links with Russia that can only accelerate the process. In fact, Putin’s order to invade Ukraine underlines a notorious quote from an earlier Russian leader, Leon Trotsky, who said ‘War is the locomotive of history’,' he says.

'In this case it could be a powerful locomotive pulling and incentivising us to decarbonise even faster, with consequent massive savings and efficiencies within our urban environments.'

Cityzenith’s SmartWorldOS Digital Twin platform is already deployed in a 'Clean Cities – Clean Future' initiative the company launched last year.

This can dramatically cut emissions in buildings and parts of 10 major cities including Las Vegas, New York, and Phoenix over the next year, expanding internationally to 300 cities over the next five years.

Jansen adds: '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.

ABI Research forecast Digital Twins for urban planning would yield $280 billion in global cost savings by 2030, while Ernst and Young reported Digital Twins can reduce carbon emissions in urban areas by 50-100 per cent, cut operating costs for building asset owners by 35 per cent and boost productivity by 20 per cent.

The world must dramatically improve energy resilience and cut carbon emissions as fast as technology allows

Digital Twins can use data sensors in the physical world, to create what is defined as Real-World Metaverse where people and organisations can, in turn, track, simulate and monitor their own world and massively drive down the use of energy.

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.

This is crucial when cities contribute 60 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions while consuming 78 per cent of the world's primary energy.

Jansen also speaks about Cityzenith’s pioneering carbon offset project to protect regions like the Amazon rainforest.

This will use Digital Twins to enable the forest's vital CO2 cleansing to be monitored, maintained, and harnessed by countries like Brazil as a carbon asset rather than be further cut down for agriculture and other uses.

'Decarbonisation of the built environment is a key metric for Digital Twin technology. And its ability to link financial incentives like carbon credits will massively accelerate adoption by building asset owners because we have made it self-financing.

'How it works is that SmartWorldOS will create the world's first green building digitally tradeable asset using blockchain technology, linked directly to a carbon rewards program, creating a truly circular economy through Digital Twins,' says Jansen.

Former Brazilian ambassador and diplomat Arnildo Schildt, who recently led a COP26 delegation, welcomed collaboration with Cityzenith on a model enabling urban decarbonisation linked to Brazil's farmers and forestry associations, governments, the UN, international banks, academics, and industry partners, as well as investors:

'We aim to harness a 'dynamic duo' - highly advanced nano sensors and Digital Twin technology - to monitor density, height and emissions and protect the rainforest in real-time, whilst allowing building asset owners to trade carbon credits/offsets internationally and reward our farmers for their support,' Jansen says.

'Carbon credit buyers then know that newly planted or established trees are not simply felled after the credits are bought. A secure market builds trust and certainty - massively important to credible buyers,' he concludes.