NOW MORE THAN EVER
As the energy transition becomes unstoppable, we must make sure it gains enough speed to avert catastrophic warming
By Jules Kortenhorst, Chief Executive Officer at Rocky Mountain Institute
This past July, we at Rocky Mountain Institute were struck in a very personal way by the urgency of the threat of climate change as an out-of-control forest fire raced down the mountainsides surrounding the RMI Innovation Center in Basalt, Colorado. Brave firefighters were able to halt the fire a quarter-mile from our office, but three of our neighbors’ homes were lost. It was a stark reminder that we all face the challenges of a warming world, including more frequent and intense droughts and more devastating fires, like the tragedy in Paradise, California, this past fall. This means that we must use new energy technologies to be better prepared (see “Seeking Resilience in the ‘New Climate Normal’”), but above all it means that we must do everything in our power to speed up the energy transition and slow down climate change. While there is much progress to take heart from, there is far more to be done, and the need for RMI’s work is more urgent than ever.
At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January, I heard from business leaders that addressing climate is now the most critical challenge we all must face, but I also heard uncertainty about how to proceed. What is the pace and the general direction of the energy transition? What are the right technologies and business models to pursue? How do business, government, and civil society leaders work together to accelerate change? This is where RMI’s contribution is so crucial — in bringing clarity to inspire confidence on the best pathways toward a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future. In these pages, you’ll see that we are leading global thought and action on the energy revolution.
One area where we’ve made remarkable progress is energy efficiency — saved energy cut global costs by $2.2 trillion in 2016 alone. In fact, as you’ll read in Amory Lovins’s article, ( See, “The Invisible Energy Bonanza”), efficiency gains are starting to push out investments in inefficient technologies and industries. Another, of course, is the rapidly falling cost of renewable energy technologies like wind, solar, and batteries. We are now starting to see existing coal plants being pushed out by new investments in solar and wind capacity. And in a development that was invented here at RMI, cities in China and India are being designed to harness both renewables and energy efficiency to achieve zero or near-zero carbon emissions while supporting vibrant and growing economies. You can read about RMI’s support of those cities, and the origins of the concept, in “When a Homegrown Idea Goes Global.”.
But daunting challenges remain. Among them is global air conditioning, which is on track to grow by more than 3 billion units by 2050 as the standard of living rises in hot, humid countries. That’s why RMI is leading the Global Cooling Prize, an innovation competition launched in November to develop a climate-friendly residential cooling solution. The prize, initiated by RMI, Mission Innovation, and the government of India, could mitigate up to 0.5 ̊C of global warming by 2100 (see “RMI in Brief”).
Another vast challenge is how to finance the energy transition in developing economies, where capital for renewables and other climate-related investments is not yet readily available. More generally we need to shift global investments away from high-carbon, long-lived assets like coal-burning power plants and prevent existing ones from being run for the decades needed to recoup investments already made. As you’ll read in “Channeling Global Investment for Good,” RMI’s leadership is helping global finance flows align with decarbonization pathways.
Another hurdle is reducing climate-forcing carbon emissions from hard-to-abate sectors such as aviation, shipping, trucking, and heavy industry. RMI is hard at work guiding innovation in all of those sectors and, as a recent report by the Energy Transitions Commission shows, decarbonizing them is achievable even with today’s technologies, at a cost far less than that of allowing their effect on climate to remain undiminished. And technologies are improving as more research and development pours in.
That’s why I noted with interest and optimism the rumblings of legislative action in the United States. This country is already achieving much, yet it can achieve more with leadership and R&D investment from the government that developed the Internet and the Global Positioning System. While the Green New Deal proposal got all the press, there is a growing bipartisan consensus that serious climate action must be taken at the federal level. RMI’s Reinventing Fire analysis showed that, from 2010 to 2050, the US economy could shift completely away from coal and oil, increase in size 2.6 times, and save $5 trillion by embracing only the efficiency and renewables available in 2011. Since we published that analysis, costs of the low-carbon technologies have improved even faster than we predicted. We see with growing confidence that the transition to a low-carbon future is profitable, and we can only hope that a consensus will emerge in Washington to put the United States more firmly on that path.
RMI is able to do its part only because of the help that comes from partners and supporters like you, and like Bud Konheim, whose passing we mourn (see “The Konheim Family’s Lasting Impact”) while celebrating his continuing contribution to preserving the Earth’s climate. In fact, right now numerous ideas for impact are sitting on my desk waiting until we find the finances to work on them. I ask you to redouble your support, and to encourage others to take part, as well. We must do all we can to scale up the transition to a cleaner and more prosperous future for us all.
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