Lubbock Lecture 2025: Engineering solutions to address climate change: issues and challenges

Engineering solutions to address climate change: issues and challenges

with Warren East CBE

Synopsis

The developed world has been well aware of climate change and many of its implications for a considerable time now, with COP climate change conferences taking place for the past 30 years and a decade having passed since the seminal COP agreement in Paris. Yet, it’s clear that we are falling well short of targets and ambitions and the very existence of anthropogenic climate change is still being debated. As engineers we love fixing things and we’ve done a reasonable job of creating a range of solutions to address climate change and the so-called Energy Transition. So why is humankind making such slow progress - and can we do better?

About Warren East CBE

After an Engineering degree Warren spent 11 years at Texas Instruments before joining ARM in 1994. He was appointed to the board in 2000, and became CEO in 2001. After some 30 years in the semiconductor industry, he left ARM in 2013, having led the team that developed ARM into the world’s leading semiconductor IP licensing company. By 2022, ARM chip volumes were over 30 billion units per year. He was appointed CEO at Rolls-Royce in April 2015 with a mission to modernise, grow capacity alongside profitability and determine the future direction for a net zero world.

He left Rolls-Royce at the end of 2022, having led the teams to modernise engineering tools, processes and manufacturing facilities, and restructure to significantly enhance operational gearing. In 2019 Rolls-Royce achieved record cash flows, before Warren steered the business successfully through the Covid-19 disruption. Under Warren’s leadership Rolls-Royce also achieved the world speed record for Electric flight and demonstrated Hydrogen combustion in an existing aero engine.

He has also served on the boards of several major engineering and technology companies since 2007, including BT Dyson and Micron, and served on several advisory boards. He is currently a non-executive at ASML, Tokamak Energy, C-Capture Ltd. and NATS Holdings Ltd. along with the advisory board for Avina Clean Hydrogen.

He is an Executive in Residence at the Saïd Business School in Oxford and an Honorary Fellow at Wadham College Oxford. He is a FIET, FRAeS, FREng, FRS, Dsit FBCS, and CBE.