What needs to be done: Climate Framework Part III

7 min readAug 15, 2020

Read The stories we tell ourselves: Climate Framework Part I here.

Read What Needs to be done: Climate Framework Part II here.

Some people have likened this decarbonization project to the Apollo moonshot, others to the manufacturing buildup for World War II known as Democracy’s Arsenal. Some think it’s a Manhattan Project in scientific scope. Some think it’s a new New Deal. […] To have a chance of creating the future our children want, and need, it is all four of these at once. — Saul Griffith

Bill Gates spent his 20s creating his empire, accumulating billion of dollars in the process. He now spends his 50s giving away all this money doing charity. Arguably, his charity donation is a lot harder than creating Microsoft. This is because of the chaotic, complex system that our world is in: social issues are often intertwined in many different ways that make it hard to work on, even with a lot of resources at hand. Meanwhile, start-ups and companies thrive because they have narrow aims — becoming the best of the world at this one particular thing. This is why tackling climate change will not be solvable by companies and innovations alone. They need to work in tandem with governments, non-profit organizations and advocacy groups. This is contrary to Silicon Valley’s ideals of a start-up, and it is probably true that, from a start-up point of view, these are out of reach. But from a top-down bird’s eyes views, we need to constantly think of how to influence all of these spheres at once.

On the other hand, this means companies are free to work on a wide variety of projects and can utilize a large number of skills. In fact, arguably every current skillset can be utilized for climate action, because every sector will need a green transformation moving forward. This section thus is divided into two: direct action and indirect action. Direct action are strategies that reduce, or remove carbon from the air, or deal with the consequences of climate changes. Indirect actions have second or third-order effects to help with climate change. Most of them can be tackled from multiple fronts: governance, business, or non-profits.

(Note: italic for potential future technology, bold for neglected or no good solutions)

Direct Action

Electricity & Heat Production (25%): generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity.

Wind: onshore and offshore. Estimated by Project Drawdown to have the highest impact on carbon sequestration.
Solar: Utility-scale solar photovoltaic and distributed solar photovoltaic, Concentrated solar power, solar hot water, microgrids (not calculated, but have high potential for places without existing electricity)
Nuclear power while currently not popular, have lower carbon sequestered potential and more expensive than solar and wind, can benefit from innovations in fusion, small modular reactor, and molten salt reactor
Small hydropower plants , wave and tidal power (though requiring large technological breakthrough to be profitable), geothermal power (with high potential as reservoirs of hot water have not been completely utilized)
Grid flexibility: with more intermittent source of power, we will need good battery storage, and flexible grid that can handle changes in demand through a combination of baseload power (nuclear, hydro, geothermal), storage both utility scale (eg. pump-storage system, molten salt) and small scale (eg. distributed battery), and smart appliances.
Energy efficiency such as LED lighting and general electrification
Waste-to-energy and biomass energy are also useful, but will be more suitable for fuel that are unavoidable (eg. aviation)

Agricultural and Land uses (24%)

Meat reduction through both advocacy for veganism and plant-based diet, plant-based and lab-based in-vitro food
Reducing food waste, mostly upstream waste in developing countries (over 90%) and both upstream and consumer waste in developed countries (upstream 60%, consumer 40%), through better transportation and storage, potential consumer’s change (eg. Ugly fruit promotion), repackaging and reusing etc.
Regenerative agriculture: including improved rice production, regenerative annual cropping, nutrient management, conservation techniques etc. Note that contrary to popular belief, most increase yield for farmers over the long term (as they prevent land degradation) but most require upfront investment.

Industry (21%)

Sugarcane plastic, an alternative to regular plastic.

Alternative cement, bioplastic and recycling are the main solutions. (Note: While a lot of this industry emission, particularly from coal, oil and natural gas, will directly be reduced if we switch to renewable energy, there is still more work to be done.)This is a huge gap that has great potential.

Transportation (14%)

Urban planning: walkable cities, public transport, bicycle infrastructure, electric trains and high-speed rails all require government involvement (with perhaps the exception of Hyperloop and a small number of operating bike-sharing systems).
Electric cars, efficient long-haul trucks, efficient aviations and efficient shipping
Carpooling and autonomous vehicles to reduce the needs for having a car
Clean fuels: biomass energy or creating fuel from the air
Improving remote work through better workflow, teleconferencing, etc.

Buildings (6%)

High efficient heat pumps, most notably geothermal which makes use of the Earth’s constant temperature to remove heat to or pump heat from
Replacing refrigerants, which currently use HFC and has high emission rate
Energy efficiency: Better insulation in the house, building automation system to increase efficiency, district heating, smart thermostats, etc.
Improving cooking stoves in developing countries, moving away from directly burning woods to biogas or electric stove
Creating zero-emission buildings using recycled water, renewable energy, better insulations, and green roofs

Carbon Capture and Storage

Tree planting: Afforestation, reforestation and forest protection
Coastal sink: Wetland protection
Ocean sink: seaweed and kelp farming, algae biofuel, regenerative ocean farming
Engineered: Direct air capture, enhanced mineralization, biochar production

Climate adaption

Genetically Modified Food with higher drought tolerance
Better irrigation and water management system
Increase education for girls, increase healthcare and contraceptive access
Better technologies, materials and buildings that are more resilient to flooding
Mangrove and oyster farming to increase resilience on the shoreline

Indirect Action

Note: Most indirect action are broader in scope, and less specific than direct actions. They also often have large positive externalities and will help in more than one front in tackling climate change.

Governance

Electing a science-based, climate-focused leader, both locally and nationally. Efforts to help lobbying will be further effective.
Lobbying for environmental, decarbonized policies
Removing fossil-fuel subsidy, increasing R&D in clean technology
Implementing a carbon tax (highly effective but highly difficult)
Lobby for other laws, such as mandates for clean refrigerants, etc.

Financial market

Fossil fuel divestment in index funds and mutual funds
Green investments from governments and financial markets for future projects
Low interest loans for small scale farmers for implementation of low-carbon regenerative farming practices
Low interest loans for consumers that only available to large utility for purchases of solar cells, heat pumps, electric vehicles and batteries
Climate insurance for communities vulnerable to climate change

Social movement and changes

Promoting broad-based good values such as generosity, care, altruism, etc.
Moving from a material-based economy to knowledge-based economy: increasing the value of knowledge over material consumption
Effective advocacy and activism
General climate education and conversations about climate change

Research and Development

Global priorities research: focusing on world’s most pressing problems
Increase fundings and attention for tracking the Earth’s system, not just temperature and carbon dioxide emission. What gets tracked gets measured.
Further, increase tracking of carbon by sectors and countries to create a system of accountability.
Research into potential accelerated carbon feedback loops. Research into social effects of climate change (eg. increase in aggression, increase in war due to famine and flood, nationalism due to mass immigration)

Talent

Mobilize global talents to work on important problems like climate change

Conclusion

The road ahead is long. It will be difficult. But at the end there is hope. We need to act now.

This is the last article in a 3-part series where I attempt to articulate my thoughts on the climate crisis, and how we can solve it.