5 Promising Factors Propelling Climate Action | Gabriel Kra | TED Countdown

We need to change the way we think about the climate challenge.

Because things are different this time.

We need to stop thinking about it just as a problem, which it obviously is,

and start thinking about it as an opportunity

which will motivate us to solve it.

I'm a venture investor.

I invest in early stage companies and technologies,

and I see tremendous opportunities in solving climate change.

That said, we've been here before, and it's different this time.

We can reduce net emissions to zero.

And that was not obvious even just 10 years ago.

Why do I think it's different?

Because we have cheaper inputs, we have better technologies.

We have better policies.

We have a better sense of urgency.

And most important of all, we have even better people working on it.

I'm from Silicon Valley,

and you can laugh or shrug

if you think that the Valley is more part of the problem

than part of the solution.

But consider this.

To succeed, if we want to succeed,

we have to act at such a truly massive scale.

We need the best investors and entrepreneurs on our team.

And it's a fact that some 15 years ago,

a bunch of us started working on technologies and companies

that could help solve climate change.

And we had some successes,

in solar and in wind,

in electric vehicles and transportation.

But, accelerated by the Great Recession of 2008,

climate tech, clean tech came to be seen as a string of investment failures.

I don't think we failed.

We were a little bit early and a little bit naive.

We didn't have all those building blocks.

Not enough of us knew that solving climate change

was the greatest business opportunity of our generation.

And we were a little bit naive.

We underestimated how hard it was going to be

to disrupt entrenched companies and industries

that did not want to change.

But now so many more people are invested in solving it.

We have those building blocks, and we have even more people working on it.

That's why I'm so optimistic and excited, why it's different this time.

Let me detail a few.

First, we have cheaper inputs.

The biggest input in our economy and the dominant cost is energy.

Until now, the dominant source of energy is fossils: coal, oil, gas.

Climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels.

But now, prompted by incredible decline in cost,

solar and wind are the cheapest forms of electricity,

most places on the planet.

Until recently, while we knew that fossils were the source of the problem,

we had no alternatives.

Stopping fossils would have meant stopping the economy.

Alternatives now exist.

Two, we have better technologies.

Consider lithium-ion batteries

and how they enabled the electric vehicle revolution.

Those batteries are now being applied towards other applications

and other opportunities.

We have better computers and new ways of using them.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence

applied to big data sets

enables us to explore and develop new materials.

It enables us to reduce energy needs,

and it enables us to solve problems in previously unimaginable ways,

some as simple as software that companies use to optimize delivery routes.

We use less fuel to get stuff places.

The bioeconomy has CRISPR and other gene editing tools.

Those can be used to help plants like wheat, corn, rice, soy

grow with less inputs, less water, less fertilizer.

Massive opportunities.

And we are in the early stages of developing equipment

that can suck carbon dioxide out of the air,

with the promise of one day reversing some of the pollution

we've been pouring into our atmosphere for the past 200 years.

Three.

We have and are developing better materials.

The streets we walk on, the buildings we work in,

they're made of concrete and steel.

Combined, those two contribute over 15 percent of global emissions.

Now we can start making buildings up to 20 stories or more high

without any steel or concrete.

There’s structures made of laminated mass timber,

which actually sequesters carbon.

And at the same time, we're developing ways

of making steel and concrete without emissions.

Fourth.

Climate tech is now sexy, elegant and chic.

Electric vehicles were invented in the 1880s.

As recently as the 1990s, though, they were clunky and ugly.

You couldn't go much more than 50 miles on a single charge.

Now we have safe, affordable,

fun-to-drive, sexy electric vehicles.

I think in five years we're going to be surprised,

we'll be shocked if people want to buy a gasoline version.

Or consider solar panels.

Not too long ago,

many communities banned them from being installed on their roofs

for fear that they would uglify the neighborhood.

Now they look like roofs.

They're a status symbol.

You have to have them.

Other panels are used to power not just homes

but companies and factories.

Messaging matters.

Fifth, there is so much more money being directed

towards zero-emissions investments.

Solving these problems, building these companies

takes hard-working entrepreneurs,

and it takes money.

Until not so long ago,

there weren't many people willing to invest in the riskiest technologies.

Now we have dedicated pools of capital focused across climate,

from early-stage technologies and companies

to later-stage development

and massive utility scale projects that require billions of dollars,

which actually encourages more capital to come in

and is a [virtuous] cycle.

Each of these examples -- this is not an exhaustive list --

but each of these examples are real.

Real opportunities that are in development.

We also have better policies.

Governments are making plans

that make them good partners and customers for entrepreneurs.

We know so much more about climate injustice.

We have real demand from the public to solve it.

We have engineers and scientists and investors

working around the planet on these problems.

Put these things together

and a clear picture emerges,

a realistic pathway towards a clean future for all.

These things have another characteristic.

They are combinatorial.

One accelerates the other.

One propels the next forward.

For instance, with cheap green electricity,

we will soon have cheap green hydrogen.

Green hydrogen can be used to power homes and factories.

It can be used to make fertilizer,

or it can be used to make steel without emissions.

Tremendous opportunities.

We're developing storage systems and batteries

that are the missing link

to make wind and solar firm and dispatchable,

real alternatives to fossils.

And ...

mark my words,

the combination of EVs and electric trains,

remote sensors and big data analytics,

it's going to revolutionize how we move people and goods around the planet.

Of course, we still have a lot to do.

We have to develop the solutions we have,

and we have to develop and invent some

to solve some wickedly hard problems,

many of which I've mentioned already.

For instance, how do we grow healthy food without emissions

while protecting and restoring nature?

How do we construct our buildings and fly airplanes without emissions?

How do we recycle minerals instead of mining for new?

And how do we make chemicals without drilling for oil and gas?

How do we make steel without emissions

and concrete that absorbs carbon dioxide at scale?

And how do we all,

especially big emitters like multinational corporations,

track and report our emissions?

Because you cannot manage what you don't measure.

We need good, reliable, transparent carbon accounting.

Another massive opportunity:

developing carbon accounting and reporting software.

Now, so many people understand the urgency of the situation.

We understand that new and now go hand in hand.

We can't sit around waiting for a solution.

We need to get out and develop the ones we have

while we invent the ones we don't have yet.

And none of this happens without passionate people,

and that's why I'm so excited, so optimistic.

I see it everywhere,

from young people in the United States

who refuse to work for a company that isn’t committed to a clean future,

to engineers in Africa

developing the infrastructure, the water and the electricity that continent needs,

but doing so sustainably.

And this is also combinatorial.

Great people attract more great people,

which catalyzes more money, brings in even more great people.

It's a virtuous cycle.

Having worked -- the key factor in any effort, in any enterprise,

the key factor in that success is the people.

And having worked in innovation almost all my adult life,

I can honestly say that the people I work with every day are,

you are, the solution.

We are different this time.

And that’s why it’s different this time.

And we will succeed.

Thank you.

(Applause)