Gerald Orman is pragmatic about working on the biggest engineering project of all time. “Climate change is a tough challenge for engineers. We have to get it right first time.” Out of the political spotlight, engineers are taking a typically nuts-and-bolts approach to steering the planet away from apocalypse. Whether it’s getting our cars to run without petrol or calculating the precise angles for wind turbines, the consensus is that there is no time to lose.

“We are in the tunnel and the train is already halfway through,” Orman says. Coming from a former project manager on London’s Docklands Light Railway, it’s an appropriate metaphor. The electric, driverless trains were extremely advanced for environmental engineering at the time. An electrical engineer-turned-risk analyst, Orman this month co-organised a conference for engineers of different disciplines to meet to discuss climate change.

“Engineers need to work together. They’re the only ones who can do it,” he says. If you plan to live near the sea in the next few years, Dr Jim Hall, a civil engineer, could be a handy person to have around. The Newcastle University professor is working on flood defence systems to combat coastal erosion and stop London from going under water as winters get wetter. “Tidal surges occur at random. With sea-level rise, random severe events are likely to get worse,” Dr Hall says.

Rising tides will threaten many of the world’s major cities. “Lowlying cities built on estuaries are particularly vulnerable.” As summers get hotter and drier, there is the opposite problem of not enough water, Dr Hall’s other main area. “Water scarcity will get worse, particularly in the South East,” he says. “The population is increasing. Water involves a sequence of engineering systems: dams, pipes, sewers.”

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Adapting our environment is crucial, but Ian Burdon, the head of sustainable energy development at PB Power, is attempting to stop climate change in its tracks. His work on alternative energy takes him to Australia, West Africa and the Pennines, where a renewable energy village is using natural resources to generate wind, solar, hydroelectric and geothermal energy. “Boring 1,000 metres into the ground we discovered hot rocks, which can be used to heat water.”

Burdon is also working on a development in China’s Yangtze delta, providing Chongming with carbon-free electricity. The experiment’s scale is dizzying. “We are looking to gasify coal to produce a synthetic gas to drive turbines. This generates electricity. We will then separate hydrogen from the synthetic gas and convey it around the island to power fuel cells for vehicles.” He describes Chongming as a green showcase. “China is building a power station every week, so it is important to address its energy challenges now.”

Carbon sequestration is the practice of capturing carbon dioxide to prevent it from being released into the atmosphere. Ingenious examples include using saline aquifers: giant cavities beneath oceans, many left by pumped-out oil. “We can use these existing voids to store carbon safely for millennia,” Burdon says.

These examples of macro engineering may smack of science fiction and some solutions are indeed still at the theory stage. Futuristic antiwarming proposals under discussion include placing giant mirrors in space to deflect the sun’s rays and modifying the reflectivity of clouds.

Heat is already a problem, says Dr Anastasia Mylona, a research associate at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment. “Buildings not engineered to withstand heat will cause discomfort. Sustained high temperatures can create health problems.” Her work is future-proofing, using weather scenarios provided by the Met Office to design buildings able to cope with rising temperatures. “We are adapting them for at least the next 50 years.” Steady underground temperatures of 9-12C can be used to cool air or water, which is circulated around the building, while thermal mass involves storing cool temperatures in the core of a building’s structure.

Yet the moral cachet of solving climate problems comes at a price: sweat. Dr Mylona and her colleagues refuse to install ungreen air conditioning as a matter of principle. “Last summer our offices got so hot we had to go home. It wasn’t pleasant.”

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