KATE THOMPSON DAVY: Don’t bank on tech saving the climate like science saved us from Covid-19

After the underwhelming promises and undermining compromises of the Group of 20 (G20) leaders in Rome last week, all eyes are now on Glasgow and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) taking place there right now.

The words of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, are echoing in my head as I write this. He said on Monday: “Technology will have the answers to a decarbonised economy, particularly over time — and achieve it in a way that does not deny our citizens, especially in developing economies, their livelihoods or the opportunity for a better quality of life.”

Instead of the commitments climate activists (and any halfway sensible person) would have liked from the man Down Under, Morrison says science and technology will offer the solutions needed to transform economies, much like how the medical science world rallied to develop Covid-19 vaccines.

Eighteen months ago, he said, we were “staring into the abyss” when “the vaccines we would need had not only not been invented, but there had never been a vaccine for coronavirus. But here we are. Billions vaccinated and the world is reclaiming what Covid has taken from us. The challenge of combating climate change will be met the same way.” The governments’ role in this, Morrison said, is merely to back the technologists and others who would make this happen.

At the risk of understatement, this is a ludicrously short-sighted comment. It’s not that I don’t think scientists and technologists will come forth with innovative means of mitigation. They will. They have. We’re literally banking on it. As the Financial Times reported, “there was a record $17bn in venture capital pumped into the so-called ‘climate tech’ space in 2020, according to data from [research group] BloombergNEF — triple the sum spent four years before”. Data from PitchBook indicates that in the first nine months of 2021 about $30.8bn were invested in climate tech.

But investing in innovation is not enough.

We have already had a boom and bust in “cleantech” that seems to be conveniently forgotten. In 2016 MIT did a cross-cutting study of $25bn in venture capital (VC) and the clean energy companies that benefited from it in 2006-2011, writing “cleantech offered VCs a dismal risk-return profile, dragged down by companies developing new materials, chemistries, or processes that never achieved manufacturing scale”. It concluded that “the VC model is broken for the cleantech sector, which suffers especially from a dearth of large corporations willing to invest in innovation”.

“Aha!” you may exclaim, now the large corporations are willing to invest and the cost curve looks totally different. Venture capitalist Rob Toews took this view in a recent oped for Forbes. He believes software, not hardware, will be the game-changer, as automation and artificial intelligence (AI) enable things such as efficient carbon offsets and precision agriculture.

Toews’s piece is full of optimism, much of it warranted, but even he concedes that “software alone will never fix climate change” because “climate change is ultimately a physical event, a phenomenon of atoms rather than bits”. That’s why, he says, we need breakthroughs in “electricity generation, energy storage, carbon removal and sustainable transportation”.

In fact, we’re already using tech to make things more efficient and transform power sources, pinning our hopes on technology for carbon capture and green fuel. Research from the London-based international think-tank the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) shows that the price of renewable energy generation (such as wind and solar) has fallen 60%-90% in the past 10 years. That is the result of advances in technology, with more to follow.

And let’s remember that tech isn’t green by nature. Far from it. Data centres are huge users of energy, and tech manufacturers contribute unspeakable masses of plastic and other muck to the problem, among many other failings.

The researchers themselves are telling us that accelerating the changes we are already capable of is the key. “To reach net-zero emissions,” the ETC told the Financial Times (in a separate article) the “first priority should be the mass scale-up of renewable power ... cranking up installations” by at least 500% of 2019 levels.

Morrison’s comment fails us because it’s just not accurate. It’s ahistorical and cherry-picking. Regulation and global collaboration were crucial in the fight against Covid-19, as they will be in this climate fight. His solution feels a little like saying: “Why fix potholes now if we’re going to have hoverbikes in the future?” That statement is clearly deficient and wholly ignores the fundamental premise of the climate tipping point. The potholes in this case are giant fiery death traps already opening all around us.

Technology and science have given us electric vehicles and green energy. By their powers combined, we have the data needed and strategies to change our trajectory. What we still — unthinkably — lack is a willingness to heed scientific advice or change our ways. And I’m not talking about you and little old me here. In a demonstration of hypocrisy-resistant ego, about 400 private jets were reportedly involved in moving our leaders, billionaires and other VIPs into Scotland this week. Each emitting an average of 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per flight hour, according to the Transport & Environment campaign group’s Matt Finch.

Yes, the individual can commit to greener living — including recycling and eating less meat — but what we really need is to use the gifts technology has given us, and meaningful action from those with real power: corporates, the megawealthy, and governments.

• Thompson Davy, a freelance journalist, is an impactAFRICA fellow and WanaData member.