Welcome to Our Blog Series
- Nathan Lee
- Dec 5, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 7, 2020
Let’s start with a question you guys are all probably wondering about:
Why invest in climate change solutions?
Climate change is real, and its effects are slow but evident. The extent of these effects is largely debated between scientists, politicians, and economists, but the key here is that it is undeniable. This means that, eventually, something will have to be done. In fact, climate investment is a quickly growing section of the US financial sector, and probably will continue to grow rapidly considering the nature of younger investors in the game now. With this in mind, it only makes sense to get your hat into the ring while the market is young. Climate solutions are a technology of the future. With this blog series, we hope to help you make an informed decision on whether you want in in this game or not.
We'll give you an overview of some of the biggest solutions available (or soon to be available) in our series. But following is a list of them, in case you can't wait to see them all:
So what's the end goal?
Well, that’s a little hard to define given that global warming is, well, a global problem. Let’s set a goal that many climate scientists claim is some kind of bare minimum we should reach for: a less-than-2° C increase in average global temperature when compared to pre-industrial ages. What does that look like in terms of emissions? Looking at this graph from the Washington Post, we’d have to go from 52.7 Gigatons (Gt, billion metric tons) CO2/yr from 2014 to nearly 25 GtCO2eq/yr in 2050: a nearly 30 GtCO2/yr reduction. To start, we made a few assumptions with this:
How quickly we scale down to this number matters, but we will disregard this to ignore the political and volatile nature of investment in this sector -- instead we aim to get to this number by 2050 and focus on this end goal.
This is a global estimate. The US is only a part of this, so we stick with a conservative portion of 3 GtCO2/yr out of this 30 total - 10% of the world's total. The US comprises 4% of the global population, but as a nation we have been emitting at a much higher amount per capita and per person.
The "business-as-usual" scenario, i.e. no climate solution implemented, leads to a change in 4° C, and probably would cause global catastrophe. We decided to exclude the upwards trajectory in this scenario in our analysis by choosing NOT to continually increase our use of coal and natural gas plants throughout the nation. Technology is becoming more efficient, renewables are taking over the energy sector, and cleaner lifestyles are becoming trendy.
If that’s not enough to convince you, consider the damages coming from climate change. We’ve had insane fires, bizarre storm events, heat waves, cold fronts, you name it. All these are costly in one form or another.
Think of it like a large bucket of water. With the start of the industrial age, we poked a tiny hole in it. At first, it wasn’t a problem: just a drop of water here and there, so we left it be. But slowly, the hole grew, causing more and more damage. Now your garage is flooded, and soon the rest of your house will be. So, we can do two things. We can put resources up front and fix it now, or we can do nothing. (But consider that the problem will continue to become worse, and that means more damages to pay for or deal with later.) All things considered, it’ll save money to start fixing the problem now, rather than pay in damages, and deal with a bigger problem 10, 20 or 100 years from now.
But it's not really as simple as slapping some tape over a hole. So here's what we can do about it. Following are the technologies we recommend, and their potential impacts by 2050, each of which we will cover in an individual blog post:
References:
Mooney, C. Holding warming under two degrees Celsius is the goal. But is it still attainable? (2015, November 29). Washington Post (Washington, D.C.: 1974). Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/11/29/carbon/
Comments