Like Fighting Fire With Improv Comedy, We Are Combating Climate Change All Wrong
We are ignoring most of the problems we will face on the way to net-zero.
In the UK, public concern about the environment exceeds those about the economy, crime, and immigration (pre-COVID numbers). Of course, when something is important to people, it also becomes important to businesses. It seems like any purchase you make these days comes with a promise of improving the world. So people and companies alike are spending a lot of money and effort into becoming greener. They are buying electric cars, reducing waste, using more efficient appliances like LED bulbs. All of these are necessary changes but are really just a drop in the ocean. You can think of these efforts like trying to accelerate forwards while your car is stuck in neutral — you are making a lot of effort while you are continuing to pollute.
In my last article, I talked about carbon offsets. Offsets are very popular among companies trying to brand themselves as green because customers love to feel that they aren’t doing any damage and love to hear their purchase will plant trees. But as I learnt while building my environmental startup, Neutro, offsets aren’t the best way to fight climate change. In fact, they are often just funding someone else’s pollution. This is because a country with a carbon target/cap (chances are that if you are reading this, you live in one of these countries), can decrease their ambitious targets as you increase the amount you offset. It’s a great (4-minute) read and will explain why many good companies that are really trying to be more environmentally friendly are likely making no difference at all.
But even if carbon offsets didn’t affect caps and targets, they still aren’t the best way to fight climate change. Today we are looking at what are currently the most important steps to take to avoid climate change. We are going to discuss why our efforts at reducing CO2 emissions are currently invested in the wrong place. I hope to explain why even the most passionate environmentally conscious people you know may not be having a real impact. Even if they consume less, have LED lights, are vegan, own an electric car, or don’t own a car at all.
The UN declared, in the Paris Agreement, a goal to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius and aim for a more ambitious 1.5 degree rise. They measure this in comparison to the temperature before the Industrial Revolution. The EU took things a step further and declared its aim to be carbon-neutral by 2050. But what happens if the world, or a specific country, doesn’t hold true to its targets?!
Well, I don’t know. But don’t worry, we are going to find out soon enough!
According to a new report from IEA (International Energy Agency), on which I am basing this article, “there is a disconnect between the climate goals that governments and companies have set for themselves, and the efforts underway to develop better and cheaper technologies to realise those goals.”
I personally love the IEA’s use of the euphemism “disconnect”. It’s a subtle, but clear way for the IEA to call countries liars. And this quote is from the first paragraph of the foreword, it is really the headline of the report. The IEA spends the next 183 pages going into detail about what different countries committed to do, what countries are actually doing, and most importantly, what needs to be done to actually achieve the declared goals. This article is an attempt to simplify the IEA report’s main point: Investing in future technologies should be our main priority in fighting climate change. Skip to the end if you just want to know what you can do about it.
In 2019, the world produced a cumulative 33 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 and at the moment our emissions are only rising. To better understand why our efforts are not invested in the right place, let’s have a look at how this incredible amount is split into sectors.
While the emissions from electricity and heat are significant, they are a lot less than half the problem. Assuming we can create enough renewable energy to power the entire grid (huge assumption right there, a topic for another article), because renewables vary based on time and season, it would be impossible to swap to solar and wind power without major investment and innovation in battery technology (or other energy storage) and likely we will need an incredible energy transportation infrastructure. Even if the electricity on our grid will be 100% renewable energy, we are still left with an incredible amount of emissions. “Much of these emissions come from sectors where the technology options for reducing them are limited — such as shipping, trucks, aviation and heavy industries like steel, cement and chemicals.“
The specific examples in the IEA report quote alone account for more than 20% of the world’s carbon emissions. In some areas, we are doing very well. Solar and wind power are becoming increasingly popular with renewables as a whole accounting for 17% of the total electricity generated in the US (in 2018) and 18.9% in the EU (also 2018). Electric cars are growing in popularity, mostly thanks to Elon Musk and Tesla making it a popular market. We have widespread use of energy-efficient lighting, mostly LED bulbs. But that’s about it in terms of areas where we are on track. We haven’t made enough progress, assuming the goals the UN set, in the fields of heating, cooling, industrial production of iron, steel, cement and chemicals, aviation, building, international shipping, or into cross technologies that are important across the field like hydrogen-based fuels, carbon capture, energy storage and many other fields.
The reduction of each of these emitting industries requires a broad range of different technologies. For example, in the process of steelmaking, you have to heat up a furnace to 1,600° C (2,900° F). Electric heating isn’t very good at reaching these extreme temperatures, so you need to burn fossil fuels instead.
It is possible to build hydrogen-fuel based steel plants that are completely carbon neutral. If we make hydrogen fuel with renewable or other clean energy, we could make steel in a sustainable way. But, if we really want to reach our goal of net-zero by 2050 we are going to need to invest in these technologies, a lot, and fast.
“In practice, this case would require, for example, an average of two new hydrogen-based steel plants to begin operating every month between now and 2050. Currently, technology for these plants is only at the prototype stage”. This quote is from the report published in July, and we still only have the one trial Ovako mill in Sweden that is using hydrogen fuels in its process from earlier this year.
I picked steel as an example because it is a big polluter, accounting for 2% of the world’s emissions alone. We also know the tech exists to make the industry completely green. And still, we don’t have a fighting chance to stop the steel industry’s emissions by 2050. I don’t want to get into too many financial calculations (mainly because I don’t have the data), but building a standard steel mill costs around $5B. By my estimations, that means that the cost of removing all the emissions from steel manufacturing exceeds Norway’s yearly GDP. And Norway hasn’t yet offered to give up all their money for the process. Although I am still hoping they will because much of their GDP is from oil.
As mentioned before, steel is just one of the many areas where we need to innovate and invest before we reach net-zero. How long do you think it will take to replace every freight and cruise liner in the world? How long before every car, truck, and train is electric or runs on hydrogen fuels?
OK, so it’s going to take a long time and is very expensive. So you may think I am going to suggest that we should start working on replacing all our infrastructure with new cleantech, right? Well… “Around 35% of the cumulative CO2 emissions reductions needed to shift to a sustainable path come from technologies currently at the prototype or demonstration phase. A further 40% of the reductions rely on technologies not yet commercially deployed on a mass-market scale.”
That really sums up our problem! The IEA aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2070, which is 20 years later than international climate policy’s aim. Assuming we are going to succeed in reaching zero emissions by 2070, 75% of the solution is still in need of either being invented or at least of big improvements. In any case, big investments will be needed in every technology area before it is ready for the mass-market. Of course, there is a lot of work to be done to move a product from the research or prototype stage to a mature, mass-market product. Many potentially revolutionizing ideas will fail at one of the stages along the way, only because there isn’t enough funding.
As a last quote from the IEA report: “Without a major acceleration in clean energy innovation, net-zero emissions targets will not be achievable.” We are not going to reach zero carbon emissions by using our heating less, buying organic (especially because organic produce actually has more emissions), or recycling. Reducing your personal carbon footprint is important, but not nearly as important as investing in new technologies!
So how do we shift from neutral to first gear? We understand that we need to invest in new tech. But how do you do this in the best way?
- Donate!
Activism as well as changing your career and lifestyle can all have a huge impact, but the best way by far to start making a significant impact is to donate money to the right charities. “Donations are by far the biggest lever that individuals have on the climate” based on Founders Pledge’s (very good) Climate & Lifestyle Report. A one-time donation of $1,000 to an effective charity can avert 40X more CO2 than living car-free.
Luckily, the same report also gives us a recommendation for the best, most effective, environmental charity: Clean Air Task Force (CATF) who “push the change in technologies and policies needed to get to a zero-emissions”. The important thing to understand is that CATF focuses on neglected sectors that are going to be critical. So while there are lots of charities and companies investing in solar and wind, your donation can make a bigger difference when invested where other people aren’t invested. What makes CATF even more effective is that they manage to affect US legislation on a relatively low budget. So every dollar you donate will likely be multiplied manifold by government spending.
So if you are looking to make the biggest difference you can, don’t stop at reducing your personal consumption, donate to give us a fighting chance at a sustainable future. You can donate once or recurringly here. If you run a business, let people know you really care by joining 1% for the planet. Individuals can also join and commit to donating 1% of their income to the environment. It’s both easier and better to donate than to live car-free. I suggest to do both, but if you have to choose one of them, go with donating.
The author, Daniel, is not affiliated with any of the mentioned organizations. He is writing about the environment as part of his new position at Neutro, an environmental payment company.
