Interview, Podcast
Unfashionable climate interventions that work & fashionable ones that don’t | Johannes Ackva (2023)
- Near-term emissions reductions are predicted to be negatively correlated with actual true impact, while the outlook for "four-degree worlds" is assessed as unlikely due to the rapid success of renewables, though the overall "effectable impact" is declining steeply as technological innovation locks out high carbon and carbon lock-in increases.
- Future emissions are expected to concentrate in emerging economies, particularly China which accounts for 25% of future emissions yet receives only 6% of global climate philanthropy, creating a significant funding gap compared to the "well-funded" focus on India and the "forgotten" status of Southeast Asia.
- Critical "hard-to-decarbonize" sectors such as cement (3-5% of global emissions), international shipping, agriculture, and industrial steel are identified as neglected, harder to solve due to longer capital assets, and representing a disproportionate share of future emissions in adverse scenarios.
- Policy progress via the "Inflation Reduction Act," "Infrastructure Bill," and "European Green Deal" has improved the innovation pipeline and established an "office for clean energy demonstration," yet "NIMBYs" and zoning regulations remain a major risk to American momentum despite significant global climate spending exceeding $1 trillion.
- Technological trajectories are described as robust to low-cooperation worlds, with solar and wind expected to dominate due to cost reductions, while advanced nuclear and super hot rock geothermal require sustained public investment and face timelines extending to 2030 or a decade respectively.
- Nuclear fusion is deemed irrelevant for immediate climate timelines due to being years away from demonstration, though it holds long-term potential, whereas advanced nuclear fission designs are anticipated to reach commercialization by 2030.
- International climate cooperation faces risks of breakdown or fragmentation, making mechanisms like "REDD+" and international carbon markets appear non-robust compared to technology-driven solutions that do not rely on sovereign contracts.
- The "valley of death" remains the primary bottleneck in the innovation pipeline between bipartisan basic research and low-risk late-stage commercialization, prompting advocacy for philanthropy to shift toward "blind spots," "unpopular things," and areas with constrained talent like high-temperature heat.
- Indirect risks from climate change, specifically civil strife and societal destabilization caused by resource shortages and migration, are identified as the dominant long-term concerns rather than direct extinction or great power wars.
- Philanthropy is characterized as hyperlocal, short-term, and crowded, with the speaker noting a two orders of magnitude difference between public spending and the $10 billion climate philanthropy sector, urging a move toward "multiplier" effects in neglected areas.
- Regional dynamics include Germany's historical anti-nuclear subsidy of solar, California's outsized innovation impact on global emissions, and the expectation that Swiss home insulation or similar local efficiency measures have negligible global decarbonization effects.
- "Alternative proteins" and air pollution campaigns are noted as viable areas, with the former having scaling potential in the 2030s-2040s and the latter being a successful, well-funded strategy particularly in Southeast Asia where it remains a plausible candidate for expanded focus.
- Risk hedging strategies are compared to advanced AI efforts, focusing on scenarios where technology succeeds (rendering hedging less necessary) versus failure modes where heavy intervention is required, with the speaker predicting that social cost of carbon is orders of magnitude higher in bad futures.