By Erica Orange & Jared Weiner, The Future Hunters, and Eshanthi Ranasinghe, Exploration & Future Sensing
If there is one trend likely to define the next decade, it is climate change. Rising sea levels, accumulating greenhouse gases, intensifying temperatures: The signals are clear and continue to worsen. According to National Geographic, children born 2012 and after haven’t lived a single day unaffected by climate change; and it has altered global weather for nearly the entire life of anyone 18 years or younger. Though shocking, this isn’t necessarily news. For several years, scientists have been speaking concretely about the global consequences of climate change, connecting it directly to current events. What’s different now is the rising public urgency alongside it — new leaders across youth activists and island nations are raising a global rallying call to action, inspiring new energy, commitment, and alliances.
But while momentum builds among activist leaders, innovators, and scientists, climate-based politics remain far from any genuine watershed moment. Polls show people are demanding action, but international governments have deliberately blocked and stymied progress. At the COP25 meeting in Madrid, the Australian government worked to lower its commitment to the UN Paris agreement while bush fires wreaked havoc across the country. At the same meeting there was an effort to block the words “climate urgency” in text, from Brazil and Saudi Arabia. Regardless of incremental progress, climate change remains one of the most intractable political issues we, as a global society, have ever faced.
New leaders have risen to this challenge. So while the outlook remains dire, we take our cue from them, and hold out hope that where there is a will (and there is that!), there is a way, and the new decade will continue bring with it renewed climate narrative, and action.
Young people are channeling anxieties about climate change into activism, and the results are astounding. In November 2018, more than 1,000 students around Australia, inspired by Swedish student Greta Thunberg, walked out of school to protest the government’s inaction on climate change. On March 2019, it was estimated that 1.6 million students from 125 countries participated in a strike, leaving classes and taking to the streets. Student-led efforts in 2019 culminated in September, when young people from 150 countries around the world — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa, and more — participated in the largest global demonstration ever in the fight against climate change: 6 million people across 4,500 locations, in the youth-organized Climate Strike rally, “Global Week for Future.” This preceded the first of its kind UN Youth Climate Summit, on Sept 21, 2019, prior to the UN Climate Action Summit, on Sept 23. One hundred youth activists were selected from a group of more than 7,000 applicants, ages 18–29, working to address the climate crisis and advance solutions around the world, to travel (as carbon neutral as possible) to the event.
Activism has spread at a dizzying pace, creating new networks and organizations, and doubling down on existing ones — from the Sunrise Movement in the US, to Green New Deal for Europe, to African Youth Climate Hub, not to mention global coalitions like Fridays for Future and Global Climate Strike. Tactics have had to adapt to country context — youth voices are not always heard so readily everywhere, and yet global coordination persists in elaborate, decentralized, and lean organization.
One of the palpable pressure points surrounding climate-based youth activism relates to generational tension. Generations of people have long struggled to fully understand one another, but today environmental degradation is a highly salient and growing intergenerational flash point. Many young people feel disillusioned and angry at preceding generations, which they blame for doing little to nothing to address what they consider an inherited long-term crisis and deadly legacy — e.g., witness the rise of “OK, Boomer,” a phrase US Gen Z has used to call out older adults on their collective lack of action on climate change and other progressive issues.
Political Timebombs: This global phenomenon of unfulfilled youthful aspirations is creating political timebombs — one of which is climate policy. For left-leaning young people in the US, the Green New Deal offers a glimmer of hope by creating a framework for a shift to a new, green economy built on economic reform, sustainability, and social justice. One of its greatest merits is connecting the casualties of modern day neoliberal economics — environment, economic equality, and social justice — in one plan (not the first attempt to do this), rather than pitting them against each other. But ultimately, the plan has struggled to gain federal momentum among more seasoned reps and commentators, who consider its advocates unrealistic and inexperienced. Meanwhile, pressures continue to mount in a generational cauldron between youth activists demanding change and older leaders refusing to give it.
New leadership is taking the stage for climate change in global politics as well. The 2019 climate summit that came ahead of the UN general assembly was the most significant climate meeting since the Paris summit was signed in 2015. More than 60 heads of state convened and announced a series of new climate targets, with about 66 countries pledging to reach “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. However, many countries did not present at the summit, including the US, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil. China, the world’s largest emitter, gave only a muted announcement.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Marshall Islands Prime Minister Hilda Heine, on the other hand, opened the national commitment portion of the summit with their countries’ plans to increase climate ambition. International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Director-General Francesco La Camera voiced support for small island developing states (SIDS) in the battle against climate change. The SIDS Lighthouses initiative received financial support from Denmark, Germany, Norway, and the UAE. And as UN climate talks in Madrid reached their closing this past December, a group of 31 countries have agreed on the San Jose Principles for High Ambition and Integrity in International Carbon Markets, which “constitute the basis upon which a fair and robust carbon market should be built.” Countries include: Costa Rica, Belize, Colombia, Paraguay, Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Grenada, Estonia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, and more.
Moreover, US$9.8 billion has been pledged by 27 countries to replenish the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) for the next four years, surpassing what was originally pledged. This is “in spite of Australia’s turndown and President Donald Trump’s decision to block $2 billion of the $3 billion promised by the Obama administration. Both countries are among the top 20 polluters in the world. To compensate for the gap, 75 percent of countries increased their pledges in domestic currency, and nearly 50 percent at least doubled their pledges. The largest donors were the UK ($1.82bn), France ($1.76bn), Germany ($1.75bn), and Japan ($1.5bn), while Slovenia donated for the first time.” The funds, from public and private sectors, will be invested in low-income countries to help reduce their emissions and adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. This was a significant move as climate finance remains contentious. “It has long been argued that richer nations (whose industrial revolutions were founded on fossil fuels) do not give enough to address climate change, for which they bear ‘responsibility.’ A report titled ‘Extreme Carbon Inequality’ by Oxfam estimated that the richest 10 percent produced half of the world’s carbon emissions.”
Funders are also joining the fray. According to Green Biz, twenty-nine mostly US-based philanthropic institutions plan to spend an unprecedented total of $4 billion over the next five years addressing climate change. The 11th Hour Project’s climate and energy program, for instance, seeks to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and accelerate the use of renewable energy primarily in the US. Though admirable, philanthropy’s commitment to global warming is reported to be less than 3 percent of its annual giving. Critics from within philanthropy have admonished this amount as much too low, especially considering the threat climate change poses to ongoing impact work. And there are those who use philanthropic dollars to impede progress. Much of the funding for US climate change-denial groups can be traced back to 140 different foundations. “Between 2003 to 2010, these foundations were found to have sent over $558 million worth of grants and donations each year to 91 groups skeptical of climate change. … Around 79 percent of these foundations are listed as charity organizations — meaning they can get tax relief — that promote conservative values or neoliberal free-market ideology.”
For global communities suffering the impacts of climate change, climate adaptation has become increasingly important. Adaptation involves reducing the risks faced by both humans and natural systems; it helps ensure that we can cope with the effects of climate change. For example, building sea walls to protect coastal communities from rising sea levels and developing drought- and heat-resistant crops. Climate adaptation policies are in place in over 170 countries, but the future demands more innovative solutions.
Rise of Green Infrastructure: It is time that we “think of our natural systems as this incredibly valuable technology,” conservation biologist Letitia Grenier is quoted saying to nonprofit news source Marketplace. She and other scientists promote using plants and soil as valuable infrastructure to prevent flooding and purify water, “in an era of rising seas and severe storms” that “call into question the reliability of traditional levees, a form of hard infrastructure.”
Materials Technology: This new gel “works like a vaccine for wildfires.” When the flame-retardant material is sprayed on vegetation, it will protect the plants from igniting for months.
Converting Waste into Energy: What if human waste was considered a resource? India’s “$62 billion sanitation economy” is fueling a growing number of companies and “sanipreneurs” to cash in by finding ways to turn human waste into valuable resources, including renewable energy.
P2P Energy Sharing: Peer-to-peer electricity trading on a nanogrid is already making inroads in many industrialized countries, such as New Zealand, Germany, and the US. In the Netherlands, Power Peers connects home energy producers with consumers wanting clean energy. Solar power can be bought from relatives’ and friends’ panels even at a long distance, and community solar panels can be built and the power shared locally. PowerPaired is a “new, free online platform which provides a matchmaking service to bring together community energy groups and the owners of sites with potential for renewable energy generation.”
Growth of Bioplastics: Thailand is “attracting billions in investments in bioplastics from global and local players seizing the opportunities the country offers as a production hub for bio-based industries due to its abundant raw materials, existing value chain, and supportive government policies.” Japan is now funding the bioplastics industry in South Africa, and sustainable and plant-based alternatives, as excessive plastic waste comes under scrutiny in the country. And Chilean start-up Valnux is “transforming discarded walnut shells into a biodegradable thermoplastic with naturally occurring antibacterial properties.”
There are also a host of innovations: Energy: Pavegen flooring tiles can convert kinetic energy from people’s footsteps into electricity. Not only will pedestrians produce their own clean electricity as they walk, they can also “generate data by relaying their footsteps, via the wireless API embedded in the tiles, to Pavegen’s website as digital currency, which can be exchanged for discounts.”
Researchers are trying to turn fatigues into power sources. They have created a “flexible electronic ribbon that contains solar cells and a supercapacitor that stores energy harvested from the sun. When interwoven with cotton threads in a military uniform, the ribbon would connect to adaptors that soldiers could use to recharge depleted gear.”
Carbon Clean Solutions is working to turn CO2 into baking powder. Canadian company Carbon Engineering can remove CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into fuel. And a new technology uses synthetic diamonds formed from nuclear waste to “create a low-current battery durable enough to outlast human civilization.”
Circular Economy and Recirculative Design: A circular economy is an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative. Mimicking natural systems, it designs out waste and pollution, keeps products and materials in use, and regenerates natural systems through “the superior design of materials, products, systems, and business models,” that can otherwise reinforce an extractive and destructive industrial process. The concept has been around since 1966 (or the beginning of time, to indigenous and other groups who have long aspired to live in balance with nature), but has picked up steam, most notably as a key topic at Davos 2020. How sincere are Davos attendees about the World Economic Forum’s powerful call? We won’t wait to find out, but instead take inspiration from efforts like this one to encourage regenerative agriculture in the US.
Recirculative Design: Self-repairing materials based on proteins from a squid’s teeth can make rips in clothes fix themselves. A magnetized ink can make wearables heal themselves when broken by sticking back together and allowing the electrical currents to keep flowing.
Adidas created a line of biodegradable shoes made from synthetic spider silk.
The world’s first 3D-printed neighborhood was built in Mexico for families living on $3 per day.
An electricity-free lamp is powered by bioluminescent octopus bacteria.
Thermoelectric paint captures the waste heat from hot painted surfaces and converts it into electrical energy.
Challenges: There are many optimistic signals for positive momentum behind climate change, but while we hope and expect this to grow, climate change itself will also get worse, bringing with it a host of new problems.
New research suggests that climate change and nationalism may be closely related. Today, the liberal, globalist system of alliances, institutions, and norms is struggling within from growing populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism. Climate anomalies (e.g., hurricanes, droughts, forest fires) have a “tightening” effect on cultures — and as these events happen more frequently, it might be driving more people toward politicians with “inflammatory rhetoric.” This may create a vicious cycle, in which the threat of climate disaster and far-right neonationalism feed off of one another.
Climate change refugees and asylum seekers are on the rise, likely fueling neonationalism further. The World Bank estimated three regions (Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia) will generate 143 million more climate migrants in 2050. Approximately 800,000 of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority have fled ethnic cleansing by moving to Bangladesh, now occupying refugee camps that are prone to flash floods during monsoons. Land bordering the camps has been deprived of its forest cover, leaving tents and huts vulnerable to being washed away. Numbers of migrants are growing faster than the world population, new UN figures show. International migrants currently number 3.5 percent of people on Earth (272 million), also increasing rapidly. About a quarter are refugees and asylum seekers, pointing to a disturbing instability in geopolitical dynamics. The number of global refugees grew by 13 million people between 2010 and 2017. There is also a new generation of authoritarian leaders using climate change to seize power.
Climate Change & the Rise in Global Conflict: According to a 2016 research paper, climate change will increase the risk of armed conflict across Africa by 50 percent by 2030. Eastern Africa is particularly vulnerable. Even countries with robust economies and democracies are susceptible. In Kenya, for example, severe drought has led to rapid inflation of food prices, doubling the number of food-insecure people since 2014. That has contributed to violent conflicts, threatening the country’s political stability. A study published in 2015 drew a direct link between the 2007–2010 drought in the greater Fertile Crescent and Syria’s 2011 civil war, which has forced millions of people to seek refuge in Europe. Their arrival has helped inflame antidemocratic movements throughout the continent.
Other issues will arise and intersect as well: As fans, cool air, even AC units become more of a necessity — and more expensive to run — how will poorer individuals cope? And how will the swings in load demand affect brownouts and blackouts? And as the heat increases the incidence of tropical diseases in northern climates, or releases ancient viruses from melting glaciers, how will we cope — and how will our public health systems, spaces, and transportation all need to adapt?
Demand for Innovative Climate Solutions: The next decade will likely bring — and demand — tremendous leadership and innovation in climate-related solutions. Imaginative cities of the future could become increasingly smart, connected, sensor-laden, and responsive in real-time to residents’ needs. They could also integrate innovations like P2P energy sharing on a big data-driven mass scale. Developing countries could leapfrog outdated Northern infrastructure, becoming earlier-adopters of newer climate-based technologies, at national or state levels but also at the individual and community levels, as young consumers are inspired by more novel, grid-less technologies.
Municipalities, urban developers, designers and manufacturers will increasingly have to think both innovatively and imaginatively around climate-based solutions, particularly as more people crowd into already crowded urban areas. The wasted goods and byproducts of today must be the raw materials of tomorrow. But we need urgency and coordination behind innovation to ensure it grows, sustains, and has impact. And while youth leaders show us a path, and a will, to change, we cannot rely solely on them. As Greta Thunberg admonished at her UN talk September 2019, “My message is that we’ll be watching you. This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. Shame on you!”
The question remains for the “rest of us”, how do we become allies in the fight to save our planet? How do we bridge climate, justice, equity, economy, and innovation, and across generations? How do we change our own behaviors, hold each other to account; and how do we make room, among old power, for new?
This is Trend #1 of 5 in Omidyar Network’s Exploration and Future Sensing 2020 Trends to Watch. View the full series here.
Consider Explorations an open space for discussion. We welcome new perspectives — especially those rarely heard, contradictory, relevant, and tangential — and most of all, conversation and partnership to build the future we want, one that includes and empowers us all.
