Climate Change is Solvable

is grappling with. We have heard from people working to reduce our use of fossil fuels, to prevent food waste, and to resolve conflicts that arise from climate change related shortages. This episode, our guest is trying to fix climate change head on. She is a neute and sorry, the CEO of the X Prize Foundation, and she's an astronaut. Throw your mind back to science class and univercall that carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels, solid waste, trees,

and other biological materials. Some of that cootwo is absorbed by plants as part of the biological carbon cycle, but we're pumping out so much of it. Those natural cycles they can cope. That means there's too much CO two and other greenhouse gases left in the atmosphere, and this messes with the temperature here on Earth, making it hotter and making our weather cycles increasingly extreme and unpredictable, with knock on effect throughout the ecosystem for all life on Earth.

The Global Carbon Project reported that carbon emissions reached an all time high in twenty eighteen, a terrible new record. So we're in the middle of an extinction event. Forests are on fire, the seas are dying. There's plastic in our blood. But many people are working to prevent climate chaos from getting even worse. There are some bright spots with huge growth in renewables and other low carbon technologies

leading the charge. And remember this is solvable. I want to read you a quote from the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Here's what she says. It is still not too late to act. It will take a far reaching vision, it will take courage, It will take fierce, fierce determination to act now, to lay the foundations where we may not know all the details about how to shape the ceiling. And our guest today is one of those women who are laying down the foundations for a different, better future.

Anuche Ansari is an engineer and she was the first Iranian ever to go into space. Her organization, the X Prize Foundation, runs competitions with huge prizes given out to the best problem solving ideas. Previously, they've run competitions to empower children, to teach themselves to read and write, to develop technology to create water from air, and to create monitors that can check ocean water chemistry down to the

deepest depths. Now, basically anybody can enter these competitions. A winning team could be made up of scientists, but the prize isn't limited to scientists, so it could be awarded to students, teachers, librarians, industrial workers, anybody who comes up with the winning solution. The prize and Nusche speaks about in this episode is the n ORG Coca Carbon X Prize. It seems to develop CO two conversion technologies ultimately to be able to remove carbon from the atmosphere and reduce

climate change. Teams will be judged on how much CO two they're able to convert and how much this will cost. So instead of backing the development of one potential solution, which may or may not work. Anusche believes that the competition will mean lots of teams turning their attention to the problem, getting us to the ants the faster. So here she is in conversation with ann Appabam, So what is it about this issue that made you want to tackle it? How did you come to the idea of

giving prices for the solutions to particular issues. The world is full of big problems that sometimes they're so big that we just turn our heads away from it and don't want to deal with it. At the same time, as an engineer, I know how technology has advanced rapidly, especially in the recent years, and how solutions are within reach. But without some effort in bringing these solutions together and to market, we won't be able to solve these problems.

What got me really interested in X price was the fact that true incentivized competition we can really raise awareness about the problem, the magnitude of the problem, the steps to solve those p problems, and also at the same time the very special effect of incentivized competition, which is a multiplier factor. For example, my family and I became involved with X Price Foundation with the first price which was around opening up space to private sector, and the

price purse was ten million dollars, which we sponsored. But this ten million dollars brought in hundred million dollars of investment through all the teams. There were twenty six teams from eleven countries that entered to compete, and this one hundred million dollars of investment brought about a lot of innovation, some of which some of these teams that didn't even win turn out to be valid companies that are sold

in place today even years after the competition. And not only that, we were able through the awareness and education that we did with policy makers with the market create new policy is that actually helped create a new marketplace that estimated to be around ten billion plus some people say it's going to get two hundred billion plus very soon. And we created this whole economy that didn't exist before.

And the same thing can be done for all the different problems that we have in the world, including the STGs. And this is what really attracts me to XPRIS and the work we do at the xprice because it really makes the problems seem solvable and it creates a way for us to see the solutions within reach, and it doesn't rely on governments or the private sector alone, but the collaboration and a work that encompasses everyone around the world to come together and the solutions that comes within

the crowd. Explain a little bit about what the expris is, who thought of it, how does it work? Express Foundation was created almost twenty five years ago, which is difficult to even fathom, but the founder is Peter Diamandez and he is someone who is very solution oriented and he also had a passion for going to space. And he was given a book by a friend that described the life of Charles Limburgh and how he flew from New York to Paris to win a prize called Ortique Prize.

It was a twenty five thousand dollars prize and this flight and this prize is what really created the entire aviation industry. So since he wanted to go to space, he decided, well, maybe he can apply the same thing in space and create an incentive prize that will really bring a lot of people who would create spaceships to go to space and allow for this type of industry to be created around space travel. So he calculated roughly the twenty five thousand dollars back then would equate to

ten million dollars of today's money, and he announced the prize. However, what he didn't count on was the fact that no one would actually want a sponsor it because it would be very risky in the mind of a lot of

corporates and high network individuals. So he tried for many years to find a sponsor, and in one article where I was interviewed, he read about my passion of going to space and we had just sold our company that I co founded with my family, and when he read that article, he decided that he needs to come talk to me, and he found me and told me about the prize, And as an entrepreneur, I was fascinated with the concept because I thought, Wow, this is de risking

R and D. This is risking investment in a new idea because you really don't pay until someone actually builds and shows you the solution works. In tech, you spend tons of money in R and D and you don't even know if it's going to work at the end or not. So to me, it made a lot of sense, and my family really was excited about being involved with it, so we became the title sponsors, and about four years later the prize was one in two thousand and four

by Bert Rutan, who was backed by Paul Allen. Paul Allen invested thirty million dollars in the company Scaled Composite with Bert Rutan to win the prize, the ten million dollars prize, and right at the time the prize was won, Richard Branson announced that he's going to sign a contract and make it into a commercial venture, which was always

our ultimate goal for the prize. So the first prize seemed to be so successful in demonstrating all the things we hoped, we decided that we need to scale this and apply to other problems in the world. So after the first price, then truly our work begin in looking at what are some of the other grand challenges, because if we can solve the problem of going to space, we can solve anything now. So that was the idea.

And Peter is still the executive chairman of the organization and very very active and a big proponent of using exponential technologies to solve world's grand as challenges. And how do you go about choosing what problems can be solving? As you say, you know, the world is full of difficult issues. What inspires you to choose one over the other.

We have seven domains that we concentrate our work. In those seven domains, it's around education, energy, environment, mobility and transport, civil society, health and longevity, and education and when we look at problems and which ones are really ex prizes, which try to look at a space where not enough

private or public sector investment and awareness is going. So if we feel that the public is very focused on solving the problem and their private companies that are investing money, or there are lots of NGOs trying to solve that problem and they're making good progress, then we don't feel like we need to do an incentivized prices. Instead, we in each domain, we basically started looking at a desired

future in different areas. We just published our future Roadmapped for forests, so we looked at where do we want our forests to be, you know, thirty forty years from now, and where are we today? Are we on a trajectory together? And if we are not, what is required to shift our trajectory together? What technological breakthroughs do we need, What

policy changes we need, what behavior changes we need? So we spend a lot of time studying this and we published a report which The Future of Forests is already published on our website. And through this process, we identify areas of breakthrough and then we analyze to see if

there is enough work going into creating those breakthroughts. If we don't see work going in that direction or investment going in that direction, then we create their price around it and we launch it through support from sponsors, and then we try to shepherd the process to bring those

solutions to markets. One of the issues that you have worked on is the issue of climate change, and this is one that's really vast and encompasses everything from climate science, to energy technology to as you say, shepherding of organizing a forest and so on. How did you break that subject down? How did you begin to think about it in a narrow solvable way. How did you come to the conclusion that this was the piece of it that you wanted to tackle, and maybe you could describe what

that pieces. When we look at the issue of climate change, you can, of course look at it in many different directions, and we do a lot of different prices and incentives that look at these different aspects. So, for example, we look at the ocean and the health of the oceans and the impact. We looked at the regeneration of corals. But the one that we were very concerned about is when we looked at global warming specifically and the CO

two in the atmosphere. There were enough work going toward alternative energies, for example, solar wind, and there were plans in trying to put these new alternative sources of energies in place. But when you look at the numbers and you see that we need to take ten billion tons of CO two out of the atmosphere before twenty fifty, otherwise we will not the one point five degree limit that we need to reach, you saw that we're nowhere

near reaching those numbers. So we needed to look at how do we take CO two out of the atmosphere. And even though we saw there are some technologies and ideas on the table, not enough focus is going to actually putting those into place and into the market at scale and with a sustainable business model. So what we did is we started launching a series of prices. We have one active price, the Enrgicocia carbon price. Today is about creating a carbon economic carbon cycle where we can

create a circular economy around carbon based products. And we started by the price that we have in places taking carbon out of a coal plant or a natural gas plan and turning that carbon into a product that can go into the market and create an economic value that can create this circular economy around carbon. So that is one that is active. We have now our finalists going through the testing process and we're hoping to announce the

winners in about a year or so. And along the same line, we started looking at solutions that will actually now take carbon out of the atmosphere or out of

the oceans, and that is one that we're designing. And we are always making sure that we don't prescribe a specific solution, but really spend a lot of time in framing the problem in a way that we can characterize the type of solutions that are needed to make sure that they're scalable, that they're sustainable, that they actually do enough in advancing the solutions into a place that will

have a major impact in solving the problem. And as long as the solutions meet those criterias and we can measure them, we don't prescribe what technology they need to be using. For example, they may come up with a solution for plants that would capture carbon and store it in the soil or in the root, or things like kelp on the oceans that can extract CO two, or ways of just directly extracting C two from the atmosphere.

So it can be any of these solutions, but all of them can compete for the price and win the price. So this is one that we're designing right now, and we're creating a coalition of sponsors to really launch these probably our largest ever ex price, to really bring massive attention to this problem and hopefully solve it once and for all for everyone. And why are the companies and groups of scientists who are competing for this why do

they do it? I mean they might not win, right, so maybe they'll spend five years trying to design a system and then they won't win the prize at the end. Why is this a sufficient incentive for them? I mean, why does this work? This is a very good question and something that we really like about this incentive prize model because it's not just about the winner, is about all those teams that enter, and especially the ones that

make it to the semi finals. What we've seen is we had, for example, prizes like the Google Learner X prize that expired, so the price pers went the way the teams continue to develop their solutions and it became a project of passion and also a project that they knew once they finished and demonstrate the technology, there will be a marketplace for it. Part of the work we do.

The prizes we run are not short term prizes because we actually ask people to build the solution, so they could be anywhere between three, five, sometimes ten years before they win the prize. So they enter this not just as you know, I want my idea to win, but they are really committing capital and R and D to building a solution that they believe will have a marketplace.

And the work we do in the background is through policy changes, through awareness, create a marketplace for these solutions, because now we're shining a lot about how these companies can solve massive problems and can have a valid business model. That's why, you know, the teams continue to compete even if they don't win, a lot of them become very

successful companies post prize. And we also see sometimes the companies or the teams merge in this process so they make it to the semi finals, and then one has a technology that's better in one aspect of the solution, and the other has this technology that is better in another aspect, and they feel like by combining they can have a better chance of first making it to the

finals and to winning the price. So we see collaboration happening even though it's a competition, and we see a lot of companies continuing on even if they don't win the price. What makes you so sure that there is a solution? How do you know that it's possible to take carbon out of the atmosphere or out of the oceans.

As part of our process when we design a price, we do a lot of due diligence to make sure that while we push the boundaries and make sure that our prizes are audacious, we make sure that they're achievable. We don't succeed always. Sometimes we're a little bit too ambitious in our desire, but we want to be on the edge. But we do some studies through a network of advisors and the experts that we create online and the work we do to see where is the state

of technology and how far can it go? What are some of the breakthroughs that are needed to happen to make it possible. Can they be done based on the More's law and the curves that we've seen with technology and price reduction and miniaturization. Can this be achieved in two years from now, for example? And if we see it as a possibility, that's how we design our prices to make sure that the solutions are sort of pushing the boundaries, but just enough that they can be achieved.

And what if they're multiple ways to solve a particular problem. I mean, actually, in the case of carbon extraction, I can imagine there might be completely different technologies which could work. We are actually not concerned about the approach to solve the problem. We're only concerned about solving the problem. So that's why the way we've framed the problems are very important for us not to really limit the type of innovations.

We would, for example, ask you to remove x amount of carbon out of the atmosphere in so much time at so much cost, and be able to do it, for example, for an extended period of time. This doesn't tell you how to do it. It just tells you the outcome that we want out of the solution. But everything that I said are things that can be measured very clearly, so you can come up with whatever solution

you want as long as you achieve those criterias. And it's important because we don't know what the solution will look like. By saying that you have to do it by using, for example, for a station or a station, we may that may not be the best solution. Or if we say you have to do it by you know, putting kelvin the ocean, that may not be the best solution. So we don't prescribe it because we don't know the answers. We want people to come up with answers that we

may not even have taught of. But we want to still achieve the final goals, which is, we need to get this much carbon out of the atmosphere or will be in trouble. And that's the steps that will help us get there. So what kinds of people introduce competitions for your prizes? We basically look for everyone within the field,

and especially if people outside the field. I can tell you that we have people of all sorts of backgrounds and different age groups, genders, geographic locations entering for our competitions. We just announced recently the winners of our Ocean Discovery Xprize, and we had a bonus prize sponsored by Noah and it was won by a junior high school team and nobody believed they would win. They were surprised. They want They want eight hundred thousand dollars, which is a lot

of money for a group of junior high schoolers. On the other side, we have retired scientists who read about a prize in a newspaper and decided to form a team and compete, and then they won. We had a person that was a tattoo artists in Las Vegas that learned about our Ocean Cleanup Exprise and formed a team and thought about using some of the techniques used to extract inc to use to extract oil when there's an

oil spill. So those are the type of innovations that we loved because he would have never thought about solving oil clean up if it wasn't for our prize. And those are the types of innovation that usually come up with the most drastic approach to solving a problem. And those are the type of solutions we love to see. And that's the beauty of exprice. So listeners who are inspired by what you say what can they do to help contribute to your attempt to solve some of the

world's biggest problems. So the first thing I would say is, if there is a grand challenge out there that you're passionate about and you want to solve, think of Exprice Foundation as a platform, as an impact platform that you can come to us and let us see if we

can help solve that problem through incentivized prices. The other thing I would love for everyone to consider is if they want to go to our website and look at some of our active prices, if they want to compete and create teams and be part of the solution and come with those innovative solutions. We always look for really wide variety of people who would compete for our prizes and to get the word out about our work, because I think it's very important for people to know that

there is this approach about solving problems. We also have a active price that I think is very important, and as I mentioned before, we have an active carbon price and we're about to launch a new carbon price. As part of this, we have been looking at creating a coalition that would allow us to create this circle carbon economy and that requires investors, innovators, public and private sector

to come together. So these are nascent technologies. Even though they're technologically possible and we're going to help them to our process demonstrate valid solutions, they will still require a network of investors and policymakers that can help them take these solutions to the market. So anyone who's interested to support us with this activity, to get to know our teams, to invest in them, to help them find ways to take their solutions to the market, we would really welcome that.

So we know how essential it has become to prevent further climate chaos caused by CO two emissions. We also know that science and technology can help us out of this mess, or they can get us further into us. Incentivizing the best and brightest minds to focus on a solution is actually such an exciting solution in itself. X Prize has been going since nineteen ninety four, and there's

a long history preceding that too. You heard Nute talking about this competition, the Taig Prize, which was a twenty five thousand dollar prize offered by hotel owner William Ortaig back in nineteen nineteen for whoever could successfully fly from New York to Paris or vice versa. Charles Lindbergh safely made the trip in nineteen twenty seven, but a number of men were killed and injured trying to get the

prize before him. And it's ironic that today some of the co two in the atmosphere is emitted by the flights we take around the world. But despite the danger and the unintended consequences of that early competition, it's still so cool to hear that. After his win, Charles Lindbergh is reported as saying, I don't believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished by not taking a chance

at all. Solvable is a collaboration between Putkin Industries and the Rockefella Foundation, with production by Laura Hyde, Hester Kant, Laura Sheeter, and Ruth Barnes from Talk and Blade. Pushkin's executive producer is Neil LaBelle. Researched by sher Vincent, Engineering by Jason Gambrel and the Great Folks at GSI Studios. Original music composed by Pascal Wise and special thanks to Maggie Taylor, Heather Fine, Julia Barton, Carli Mgliori, Jacob Weisberg

and Malcolm Gladwell. You can learn more about solving today's biggest problems at Rockefeller Foundation dot org slash solvable. I'm Mave Higgins. Now got solve it.