We need a huge climate crisis to shake us out of our complacency, argues Julian Saunders.
Published 08 Nov, 2024
AURORA/DAWN
“Necessity is the mother of invention” is a proverb that stands the test of time. We saw it in evidence during the pandemic. In normal times, it can take a decade to develop a vaccine, yet it took less than a year to produce one. Governments sacrificed other medical research priorities to do so.
War, that other great and constant crisis in human affairs, acts as an accelerator of innovation. Radar, jet engines, the internet, canned food, atomic fusion, and most recently, autonomous drones are just a few of the innovations war has produced.
The big predictor of whether a society really commits to change is therefore the threat of an existential crisis.
Pandemics and wars have direct and visible impacts on populations. Governments have to act urgently. They have no choice, or they are likely to be chased from office on a tidal wave of public anger. The general public faced with death and/or displacement is also prepared to make sacrifices.
And here’s the rub. For all the talk of the climate crisis, it is unclear whether most populations and governments see it as an existential threat right here, right now. We are not prepared to ban the burning of fossil fuels. The big emitters of greenhouse gases – China, the US and other industrialised societies – are full of good intentions but are not prepared to sell a more rapid switch to green energy to their populations. Solar panels are booming and becoming cheaper, but coal-fired power stations are also being built, especially in China. Politicians in the US dare not alienate ‘Big Oil’.
Not surprisingly, behavioural change at an individual level is lagging. The signalling from the government is not yet for urgent change. People intuit that their individual actions will not stop the planet from frying unless the likes of China and the US cooperate to drastically reduce the burning of fossil fuels. Many people do exercise responsibility by, for example, foregoing plane travel and eating meat, yet others are merrily taking those EasyJet flights, which remain cheap and easy to book. Things are serious, but do I have to give up doing the things that give me pleasure? Not yet.
My apologies to Aurora readers for this dispiriting introduction. Where is the hope, you might ask? Firstly (and paradoxically), it lies in crisis. None of us can foresee the next decade. A huge and sudden climate crisis event (flooding, desertification, fire) will shake us out of our complacency and bring distant terrors near. It will spur action and innovation in a way no amount of sober analysis cannot achieve. Secondly, it lies in the technology dynamic.
Inventions tend to be expensive at first. Then technology – driven by demand and the opportunity for large markets – becomes both cheaper and easier to use. Cheapness and ease are reliable predictors of mass adoption and behavioural change. This dynamic is in play with solar panels. My neighbour is installing them; I will probably copy her. As I looked out of the window of a train this week, I saw a whole field given over to solar panels. This is clearly good business for farmers in the UK. Thirdly, it lies in government commitment to investment and not just relying on market forces. Vaccines and solar panels are both examples of massive government intervention to underwrite production. In 2009, China began offering a nationwide subsidy for solar energy sold to the electric grid, which created a growing domestic market for solar photovoltaic technologies. In July 2024, China announced a subsidy package of over 2.7 billion yuan ($220 million) for solar power.
To understand which ones of the green technologies will take off in the next 20 years, a good question is: what are the technologies being supported by governments and especially by the Chinese Communist Party? The Kiel Institute reports that China heavily subsidises green tech sectors such as electric mobility, solar and wind power. China’s overall subsidies range between three and nine times that of other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Because China is a manufacturing powerhouse, prices collapse quickly. Chinese-produced electric cars are about half the price of US and European brands.
Which brings us to a geopolitical crunch. Do you import these inexpensive Chinese products and transition more quickly to a green economy, or do you slap on big import tariffs to protect domestic businesses? The Trumpian USA has already made up its mind about this. Other countries, unencumbered by the political need to protect their domestic industries, can take advantage, especially sunny and windy places. In the UK, for example, 30% of energy production was from wind in 2023, up from 22% in 2021. That is a rapid transformation. Africa will surely be the solar-powered continent in the next decade. Innovation is bubbling away in many domains. A recent visit to the Design Museum in London highlights two that could become much more important in the next decade, driven by crisis and the need for concerted government-led action:
1 System Built Housing
The volumes of people seeking refuge could increase dramatically due to climate change. Natural disasters destroy homes. As resources become more constrained, we will see more wars. We will need homes (not just tents) that can be quickly erected: predesigned, pre-manufactured and assembled on site at a low cost. We will see the reinvention of ‘the prefab’ that was widely used in the wake of the Second World War in the UK.
2 Data Centres and Energy Recycling
Here is a shocking fact. Data centres are responsible for nearly one percent of all energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in the world – close to the entire aviation industry. They will surely grow and be put under the spotlight by activists. Every time you post a picture on Facebook, you contribute to it. AI will cause it to grow even faster. Yet, data centres produce heat, which, if managed well, can be recycled and reused. Tallaght is the site of Ireland’s first district heating network sourced from the waste heat of an Amazon web services data centre. It is the kind of investment big tech companies are well advised to take to preempt being penalised through fines and taxation.
Crisis, then, can be painful and even deadly. But it seems to me to be the necessary stimulant we will need for more rapid transformation. We have to hope it does not come too late.
Julian Saunders is a strategist, writer and teacher.
julians@joinedupcomy.com
“Necessity is the mother of invention” is a proverb that stands the test of time. We saw it in evidence during the pandemic. In normal times, it can take a decade to develop a vaccine, yet it took less than a year to produce one. Governments sacrificed other medical research priorities to do so.
War, that other great and constant crisis in human affairs, acts as an accelerator of innovation. Radar, jet engines, the internet, canned food, atomic fusion, and most recently, autonomous drones are just a few of the innovations war has produced.
The big predictor of whether a society really commits to change is therefore the threat of an existential crisis.
Pandemics and wars have direct and visible impacts on populations. Governments have to act urgently. They have no choice, or they are likely to be chased from office on a tidal wave of public anger. The general public faced with death and/or displacement is also prepared to make sacrifices.
And here’s the rub. For all the talk of the climate crisis, it is unclear whether most populations and governments see it as an existential threat right here, right now. We are not prepared to ban the burning of fossil fuels. The big emitters of greenhouse gases – China, the US and other industrialised societies – are full of good intentions but are not prepared to sell a more rapid switch to green energy to their populations. Solar panels are booming and becoming cheaper, but coal-fired power stations are also being built, especially in China. Politicians in the US dare not alienate ‘Big Oil’.
Not surprisingly, behavioural change at an individual level is lagging. The signalling from the government is not yet for urgent change. People intuit that their individual actions will not stop the planet from frying unless the likes of China and the US cooperate to drastically reduce the burning of fossil fuels. Many people do exercise responsibility by, for example, foregoing plane travel and eating meat, yet others are merrily taking those EasyJet flights, which remain cheap and easy to book. Things are serious, but do I have to give up doing the things that give me pleasure? Not yet.
My apologies to Aurora readers for this dispiriting introduction. Where is the hope, you might ask? Firstly (and paradoxically), it lies in crisis. None of us can foresee the next decade. A huge and sudden climate crisis event (flooding, desertification, fire) will shake us out of our complacency and bring distant terrors near. It will spur action and innovation in a way no amount of sober analysis cannot achieve. Secondly, it lies in the technology dynamic.
Inventions tend to be expensive at first. Then technology – driven by demand and the opportunity for large markets – becomes both cheaper and easier to use. Cheapness and ease are reliable predictors of mass adoption and behavioural change. This dynamic is in play with solar panels. My neighbour is installing them; I will probably copy her. As I looked out of the window of a train this week, I saw a whole field given over to solar panels. This is clearly good business for farmers in the UK. Thirdly, it lies in government commitment to investment and not just relying on market forces. Vaccines and solar panels are both examples of massive government intervention to underwrite production. In 2009, China began offering a nationwide subsidy for solar energy sold to the electric grid, which created a growing domestic market for solar photovoltaic technologies. In July 2024, China announced a subsidy package of over 2.7 billion yuan ($220 million) for solar power.
To understand which ones of the green technologies will take off in the next 20 years, a good question is: what are the technologies being supported by governments and especially by the Chinese Communist Party? The Kiel Institute reports that China heavily subsidises green tech sectors such as electric mobility, solar and wind power. China’s overall subsidies range between three and nine times that of other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Because China is a manufacturing powerhouse, prices collapse quickly. Chinese-produced electric cars are about half the price of US and European brands.
Which brings us to a geopolitical crunch. Do you import these inexpensive Chinese products and transition more quickly to a green economy, or do you slap on big import tariffs to protect domestic businesses? The Trumpian USA has already made up its mind about this. Other countries, unencumbered by the political need to protect their domestic industries, can take advantage, especially sunny and windy places. In the UK, for example, 30% of energy production was from wind in 2023, up from 22% in 2021. That is a rapid transformation. Africa will surely be the solar-powered continent in the next decade. Innovation is bubbling away in many domains. A recent visit to the Design Museum in London highlights two that could become much more important in the next decade, driven by crisis and the need for concerted government-led action:
1 System Built Housing
The volumes of people seeking refuge could increase dramatically due to climate change. Natural disasters destroy homes. As resources become more constrained, we will see more wars. We will need homes (not just tents) that can be quickly erected: predesigned, pre-manufactured and assembled on site at a low cost. We will see the reinvention of ‘the prefab’ that was widely used in the wake of the Second World War in the UK.
2 Data Centres and Energy Recycling
Here is a shocking fact. Data centres are responsible for nearly one percent of all energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in the world – close to the entire aviation industry. They will surely grow and be put under the spotlight by activists. Every time you post a picture on Facebook, you contribute to it. AI will cause it to grow even faster. Yet, data centres produce heat, which, if managed well, can be recycled and reused. Tallaght is the site of Ireland’s first district heating network sourced from the waste heat of an Amazon web services data centre. It is the kind of investment big tech companies are well advised to take to preempt being penalised through fines and taxation.
Crisis, then, can be painful and even deadly. But it seems to me to be the necessary stimulant we will need for more rapid transformation. We have to hope it does not come too late.
Julian Saunders is a strategist, writer and teacher.
julians@joinedupcomy.com
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