Let a Scientist Tell You How the World Really Works
Confessions of a renowned expert on energy transitions
On climate change, we are all wrong. Or at least, many of us are. We ignore or fail to understand the fundamentals of the global economy. And this is an obstacle to serious climate discussion.
If there is a concept to grasp first, that concept is scale.
The energy transition affects billions of people and trillions of dollars in financing. Not millions. Not billions. Yet, people seem to underestimate it constantly.
We are already talking about net zero emissions by 2050 when we have yet to develop a large-scale carbon sequestration method.
Also, the elephant in the room is that the IPCC is talking about net zero, not zero. The unspoken is about the billions of tons of carbon we will continue to emit.
It is unrealistic to expect we can sequester carbon at this rate on such a scale. Every climate deadline is already out of reach. Any optimistic forecast of decarbonization by 2030 underestimates the complexity of the problem.
The point is that our goals lack a basis of realism. Certainly, goals guide our actions. But goal setting without a dose of realism is misleading.
