Lawrence Livermore National Lab , Princeton University , and the IPCC have all published proposed climate mitigation pathways : strategies for economically reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century for California, the U.S., and the world, respectively. And they are not alone. Any given pathway to net-zero emissions offers some combination of efficiency improvements, expansion of renewable energy sources, and some amount of so-called "negative emissions," using technologies and natural processes...
May 23, 2022•34 min•Season 1Ep. 57
For years we’ve been hearing that the clean energy transition is going to be expensive. But the recent working paper, Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition, suggests that the high estimates of the expense to transition to renewable energy have been inflated, and that it may in fact be cheaper to transition to renewables than to stay on fossil fuels, regardless of the costs of the changing climate. Using probabilistic cost forecasting methods, the authors of the pape...
May 16, 2022•28 min•Season 1Ep. 56
Among the top importers of Russian oil are the EU, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and France. The EU accounted for 71% of oil imports from Russia 2 months after the war in Ukraine began. But cutting off oil and gas imports from Russia completely can pose great challenges . The EU is attempting to wean off of Russian oil dependence in response to the invasion of Ukraine by hastening renewable energy adoption. The 1970’s oil crises led to a flattening of the exponential demand growth for oil glo...
May 09, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 55
If the international shipping sector were a country, it would be the sixth largest CO2 emitting nation in the world . Every year, 11 billion tons of goods - about 80% of all the goods we use or consume - reach us by ship, emitting nearly a billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in the process. And, about 40% of those goods - nearly 4.5 billion tons - are fossil fuels. Unlike switching to renewable energy and electric road vehicles, there is not an obvious short-term economic benefit to decarbon...
May 02, 2022•28 min•Season 1Ep. 54
S oil - that mixture of degraded bedrock, decomposing organic matter, and microorganisms, that nourishes the root systems of plants and trees - already has a soil carbon bank 4x that of vegetation. And, by changing how we manage our soils, it is possible to increase their capacity for trapping CO2 in the form of organic carbon and enhance the agricultural productivity of a region. Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Professor of Soil Biogeochemistry and Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences in the Department of...
Apr 25, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 53
Today, 26% of the global population - about 2 billion people - live without reliable access to safe drinking water. And, as climate change worsens, the availability of fresh water will only decrease. By 2050, as many as 3.2 billion people could live in severely water-scarce regions of the world. More than half the global population will experience water scarcity for at least one month a year. Options for mitigating this crisis are limited: we can use less water, discourage population growth in u...
Apr 19, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 52
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wants to standardize climate disclosures for publicly traded companies. What does that mean? On March 21, 2022 the SEC released a proposal for a new rule : publicly traded companies will have to provide disclosures about how the changing climate will affect their business, and how their business is affecting climate. This move would formalize a reporting system for climate-related disclosures that investors are increasingly demanding . Climate Now sat ...
Apr 12, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 51
In the race for decarbonization, the shipping industry faces major challenges . Fuel is cheap, almost half the price of gasoline . And, most ships last between 20-25 years , meaning that the turnover to cleaner shipping could take far longer than road transportation, where the average car is only 12 years old . But there is some wind in the sails of maritime decarbonization initiatives. Maria Gallucci, a climate journalist with Canary Media, has spent the last 5 years investigating the challenge...
Mar 29, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 50
One of the most efficient ways to get to a net-zero economy is to generate electricity from renewable sources, and then make as many things run on electricity as possible . But, as more end-use services (transportation, heating, industry) are electrified, and the source of electricity transitions from fossil fuels to renewables like solar and wind, the electricity supply chain - the pathway from electricity producers to consumers - will need to evolve, too. In this episode, we spoke with Monica ...
Mar 22, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 49
In 2021 alone, more than $32 billion dollars were invested in green-technology startups, a four-fold increase from five years earlier. But how far will those dollars go? Only about 25% of venture-backed startups actually make the transition from an innovative idea to a successful business. And when we are considering green technology, choosing which companies will have the biggest impact means much more than a return on investment. It will determine how fast we can reach a carbon-free global eco...
Mar 08, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 48
What will it take to get 100% of new car sales to be electric by 2030? Is it consumer demand? Is it political pressure? How about we just increase both? The Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) is the first industry-backed coalition advocating for 100% EV sales by 2030, and they have devised a federal roadmap for reaching that goal. Joe Britton of ZETA and Dr. Sweta Chakraborty of Pioneer Public Affairs sat down with us to outline the ZETA roadmap, with a focus on the role of public p...
Feb 22, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Decarbonizing our global economy is critical to staying below the 1.5C threshold of warming, but so is reducing the amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. By 2050, we will need to remove about ten billion tonnes of CO2 every year . Currently, we are capturing and sequestering about 40 million tonnes a year - about 0.4% of what’s needed by 2050, and less than 0.1% of the CO2-equivalent of global energy and industry emissions . For comparison, renewable electricity has ramped up to 12...
Feb 18, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 46
There is a lot of focus within climate tech on how to decarbonize cars—whether that be via electric batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, or other emerging technologies—but what about eliminating the need for cars altogether? How can we better design our cities and suburbs so that they are centered around humans, not cars? Cars do not need to be the primary method of urban transportation, and alternatives such as public transportation and micromobility have benefits far beyond simply reducing carbon e...
Feb 08, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Climate policy at the federal level is integral to mitigating the climate crisis. Unfortunately, the United States has had a hard time so far passing ambitious climate legislation. Why is that? From the outside, the situation often seems hopeless. But what does it look like from inside Washington? To find out, Climate Now spoke with Alex McDonough. Alex started his career as a policy advisor for Senator Harry Reid, co-founded Clean Energy for America, and is now a policy advisor and partner at P...
Feb 01, 2022•24 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Heavy-duty, long-haul trucks - known as Class 8 trucks - account for more than 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide each year. Electrification, while a practical option for most of the trucking industry ( see last week's episode ), is not yet as feasible for long-haul Class 8 trucks. | What options might exist to decarbonize heavy-duty trucking in the short and medium term, if not with electrification? Climate Now spoke with two entrepreneurs whose companies are developing altern...
Jan 25, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 43
In 2019, medium- and heavy-duty trucks accounted for about a quarter of U.S. transportation emissions while representing less than 4% of vehicles on the road, according to the U.S. EPA. It is clear the trucking industry must decarbonize in order for the transportation sector, and the economy as a whole, to reach net-zero emissions, but which emerging technologies will move freight vehicles into climate-friendly territory is not yet clear, though electric is making great strides . Climate Now spo...
Jan 18, 2022•41 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Ride-sharing services currently result in 69% more emissions, on average, than the trips they displace, according to a recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists. But, if the ride-sharing vehicles were electric, it's a whole different story. Replacing one gasoline-powered ride-sharing car with an electric vehicle (EV) has three times the climate benefit as replacing a personal car with an EV . Some companies like Cruise and Aurora go even further, developing electric autonomous fleets, wh...
Jan 11, 2022•43 min•Season 1Ep. 41
Climate Now is kicking off our Decarbonizing Transportation series by addressing a question that looms over the electric vehicle market: how can we sustainably manufacture and recycle EV batteries? To learn about electric vehicle battery trends and challenges, we are joined by Andy Stevenson, former Special Projects Associate at Tesla and former Chief Financial Officer of Redwood Materials, a battery recycling company. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn , Facebook , and Instagram . Contact us at con...
Jan 04, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 40
The Connecticut Green Bank, the first green bank in the US, has unlocked over $2 billion in capital toward clean energy projects and other climate solutions since it was established by the state legislature in 2011. So, what is the green bank model? How does it compare to other methods of clean energy finance? And what are their impact? Climate Now speaks with Connecticut Green Bank President and CEO Bryan Garcia to find out. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn , Facebook , and Instagram . Contact us...
Dec 21, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Earth's oceans play a key role in slowing climate change, absorbing nearly a third of anthropogenic CO2 emissions . And they could, potentially, absorb more. In this episode, Climate Now explores developing methods to enhance ocean-based carbon dioxide removal. What do we know about each technique, and what are the associated risks? Learn more in our conversation with Dr. Wil Burns, visiting professor at Northwestern University's Environmental Policy and Culture Program and emeritus co-founding ...
Dec 17, 2021•39 min•Season 1Ep. 38
In November 2021, representatives from around the world gathered to update their climate commitments at the 26th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow, Scotland. The conference received substantial attention from media and climate groups around the globe, the likes of which we haven't seen since COP 21 - the 2015 Paris Climate Accords. So why was there so much anticipation leading up to this year's COP? What were the expectat...
Dec 14, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Wind energy is one of the cheapest sources of energy today , but it accounts for only ~6% of global electricity generation. To limit global warming to 2 degrees C or less, wind energy will need to scale up to about 5 times its current size . | So, how can this be achieved? What are the challenges to scaling wind energy to this degree? How does off-shore wind fit into this equation? And what needs to happen this decade to put us on track? Climate Now is joined by Dr. Simon Watson, Director of the...
Dec 10, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Much of the focus surrounding climate action is on mitigation: how do we reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and avoid catastrophic climate change in the coming decades? But the reality is the climate is already changing - and will continue to change even under the most optimistic mitigation scenarios . So what is being done to adapt and prepare for these changes? Beth Gibbons, Executive Director of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, joined Climate Now ...
Nov 30, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 35
"The [investment market] we have in place now is not working for people, it's not working for the planet, and it's actually not working for most investors." This is according to Amit Bouri, Co-founder and CEO of the Global Impact Investing Network (the GIIN), an international community dedicated to increasing the scale and effectiveness of impact investing. Impact investments are made with the intention of producing a positive change, for example in addressing the climate crisis, while simultane...
Nov 23, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 34
A growing population, groundwater depletion, poor water infrastructure, overuse, and water waste threaten our global freshwater supply. Throw climate change into the mix, and the water crisis is exacerbated , as precipitation becomes less reliable and average global temperatures rise. The water crisis, like the climate crisis, is projected to get worse , but there are solutions both corporations and governments can adopt to mitigate the negative impacts and prepare. Climate Now spoke with Will S...
Nov 16, 2021•21 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Most climate models in use today are based upon large-scale, well-understood physical relationships that drive global temperature and precipitation trends. But the effects of complicated interactions that occur on smaller scales, which may still be significant, are harder to capture in these models. That is why Dr. Laure Zanna of New York University and her colleagues are employing machine learning techniques, which can "learn" the effects of these interactions without explicitly solving the phy...
Nov 02, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 32
What does it take to turn an idea that could help fight climate change into a self-sustaining business? We often hear the glamorous stories of startups that have made it, but little about the struggles, the learning, and the luck required to get there. Pol Knops, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Green Minerals, joined Climate Now to share his ongoing journey to design, develop and market a process that transforms carbon dioxide emissions into a useful product. Green Minerals speeds up the...
Oct 26, 2021•20 min•Season 1Ep. 31
How do we finance the cost of mitigating climate change, while discouraging continued use of fossil fuels? The largest public statement of economists in history argues for a carbon tax - which would charge a fee for every ton of carbon dioxide emitted. But, if one country charges a different carbon tax than another, what would happen to international trade? Would fossil fuel use and emissions-intensive industrial processes actually decrease, or just move to a country without a carbon tax? Carbon...
Oct 19, 2021•39 min•Season 1Ep. 30
A rapidly expanding list of companies have announced plans to go "carbon neutral" or "net zero". Often, these plans include at least some offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing credits from forest carbon offset programs. But buyers beware: our look into how forest carbon offsets are determined and sold suggests that there is a lot of work to be done before we will be able to monetize the carbon absorptive power of trees in our effort to reduce net emissions. Climate Now spoke with ...
Oct 12, 2021•49 min•Season 1Ep. 29
For businesses, a changing climate is not just about worsening weather patterns. Businesses must be prepared for what is likely to be an era of rapidly accelerating change to many dimensions of their operations, including changes in shareholder expectations, supply chains, multi-dimensional risks to physical assets, and impacts on labor, among others. A critical dimension to preparing for these changes is risk assessment and reporting. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCF...
Sep 24, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 28
