I love technology and gadgets. From the cool tools of a movie hero to something practical I can get my hands on, it can be seductive to think that innovation is the answer to our most pressing problems. But how much can we rely on tech fixes to lead us to the zero-carbon, climate-resilient world we aim for?
In essence, we need innovation across business models, products, and services to unlock solutions that are already available to us. But how far will these applications get us?for getting the global energy sector — which accounts for about three-quarters of all greenhouse-gas emissions — to net zero. It estimated that about 80% of the technologies we needed to reach our emissions-reduction objectives for 2030 were already commercially available, often as energy efficiency and renewable power.
The global nature of the climate crisis also demands innovation that mobilizes a wide variety of people and organizations around the world to come up with and implement solutions that fit in their local context. Climate-change innovation has a necessary, unique international flavor, which should help us find solutions. What about resilience? We need to deal with climate-change effects that are baked into our system.