Getting "Realistic" About Climate Change

There’s a famous quote I like to rephrase. “All it takes for the triumph of good over evil is for good people to step up.” Quite literally. It requires significantly less effort than we’ve been led to believe.

Civilization could start to collapse as early as 2040 according to research by MIT & KPMG (and lots of other smart people). But it only takes 10 cents of every $100 floating around in the global economy to solve the problem of one of the most likely causes of that collapse, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Namely climate change, driven by an unsustainable energy system powered by fossil fuels.

Don’t buy the rhetoric and claims that endless exploitation of fossil fuels at current levels, let alone increases being peddled to developing nations like crack dealers telling people “just try one hit, it’s on me,” is in any way sustainable. 99% of the people who don’t profit directly from the sale of energy and who have PhDs in the topic (the scientists) all agree, climate change is real and we’re responsible. (Don’t believe me? Click the link, don’t take my word for it.)

I’ve been spending significantly more than 10 cents of every $100 on this issue for years thinking a sufficient number of good people would eventually step up. Instead, lots of good people continue to beat tribal war-drums and bury their heads in the sand thinking partisanship is a solution to anything.

As Albert Einstein once said, “we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

After the revelations of rampant corruption from bad actors over the last 48 hours, it’s time for the good people among us to step up and make sure we do what we need to do to seize the remaining 14% chance to keep temperature increases below 1.5c the IPCC (a group of largely volunteer scientists comprising some of the brightest and most ethical people we have) and UNEP says we still have.

This means cutting carbon emissions 50% by 2030, and no, thinking that carbon capture and storage is going to play any sort of meaningful role in achieving that goal is unrealistic. 80% of CCS projects have failed, there is no reality in which degrading efficiency of fossil fuel plants, which already are not competitive with wind, solar, and battery storage (whose prices will continue to drop), anywhere from 10% to 60% will ever result in competitive LCOE. It’s been demonstrated, through pretty simple math, that in many cases lifecycle emissions are lower WITHOUT CCS than with CCS. Nevermind the seismic activity CCS can trigger, or the fact that carbon can escape in many cases, resulting in CCS not working in the first place.

The COP28 President is saying we should be “realistic” while violating ethics standards and peddling fossil fuel projects to governments in Asia and Africa who need help improving their infrastructure? Fine. Here is the reality. We're running out of time, CCS is delusional and we have better, more cost effective, solutions to decarbonize even the toughest sectors.