Climate technology change — part 2

Will innovation be enough?

Photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash

Last week I introduced the thoughts of four journalists from The Economist and their live discussion about climate change and the role of technology. One of the key questions explored was how to bridge our dependence on fossil fuels, recently brought into stark reality with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and cleaning up our carbon-free act while doing so.

The conclusion for the oil industry was to innovate and implement thoughtfully, with a mindset switch away from 40 year infrastructure projects to maximise revenues and profits. Carbon needs to be captured and stored while we wean ourselves away from natural gas. Examples of this happening already were given in Aberdeen, giving rise to some hope that a trend might be starting.

The human contribution was limited to buying an electric vehicle and replacing the next boiler with a heat pump. They didn’t tackle the thornier non-technical issues of personal choice, such as flying less, easy on the beef, buy local and vote for a government with at least one eye on a zero carbon future and a plan of how to get there.

Given that the US is historically responsible for a quarter of all the carbon in the atmosphere, this week we explore what their take on a greener…