How innovation, coordination and compassion can help us tackle climate change

Guest Author
Illustration of two sets of hands holding up a globe.
Illustration by Nadya Nickels.

It’s logical to feel overwhelmed by the climate challenge we face.

Last year was the hottest on record, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) talks were predictably incremental and we are on track to significantly overshoot a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in average global temperature. We are all going to be impacted, and the situation may become dire for the most vulnerable communities and countries.

But there is hope. Depending on how we act in the years ahead, this moment could be a transitory period of hardship that leads to a new era of sustainable, equitable prosperity.

To achieve this prosperity, we need to break the link between economic growth and degradation of human health and environmental systems. We need to decouple metrics such as increasing gross domestic product (GDP), a limited but still useful metric of material prosperity, from rising carbon dioxide emissions.

As shown below, over the last 60 years the upper bounds of human wealth and health have risen enormously for some. But this prosperity has been achieved at significant costs to the environment and with billions of people still left behind.

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, The World Bank • GDP = gross domestic product, measured in current USD. Average CO2 is measured in parts per million.

We can do better — driving economic growth without disrupting complex human and environmental systems. We can do this by focusing on three key goals:

First, we need innovation, shifting talent and funding toward finding new, more sustainable ways to provide for human well-being.

The last few years have been a promising start. Young people joining the workforce are passionate about working on climate. Significant public and private sector research and development efforts are searching for new technologies. And institutional investment capital is engaging on climate change and the energy transition, although project risks need to fall even further to truly unlock the trillions in investments we need.

Second, we need coordination, finding ways to better track, understand and manage our greenhouse gas footprint.

For instance, we should rapidly expand our use of sensing technologies to better track our impact on complex systems. New methane sensing technologies have become adept at revealing the most cost effective and impactful emissions reduction opportunities, though scaling these new tracking technologies is often slowed by lack of funding and slow integration into operations and regulations.

Once we have that data, we need to rapidly improve understanding of our choices and their repercussions. Large scale data analytics (including artificial intelligence) are ideal for distilling the insights we need. This technology can empower the individuals upgrading our infrastructure systems — developers, financiers, policymakers and beyond — who all face complex, risky and expensive decisions. We need to better equip these unsung heroes working to build our sustainable, equitable future.

Even with data and insights in hand, some organizations may still be planning for the status quo or are simply not ready to adapt to market changes. If that’s the case where you work, then look for the causes within leadership, owners or customers. Try to change those factors, and if you can’t, consider moving on. The future is being built elsewhere.

Finally, we need compassion, working to understand the viewpoints of others and resisting political hyperbole and tribalism. Our collective footprint is the result of trillions of individual choices each day, made possible by the industries and governments that we have created with our wallets and ballots. It’s easy to get clicks or campaign contributions by pointing fingers at Big Oil, environmental activists or China, but the real world is not that simple. The energy transition is such an enormous undertaking, we need to row together to get, and stay, on track.

I believe there is a future where we achieve the above: embracing innovation, coordination and compassion to decouple GDP growth from greenhouse gas emissions. This optimism drives me to begin each day, working with a stellar team to help build something better.

We have difficult years ahead, but it’s exciting to imagine building 22nd century-grade infrastructure today, and our kids (and their kids) living in a brighter future as a result.

This sustainable, equitable future is far from a certainty. But it’s a possibility, and now it’s our job to make it happen.