How we can curb climate change by spending two percent more on everything | Jens Burchardt

38,377 views ・ 2021-04-22

TED


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This is a lump of coal.
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It was mined a while ago in the Ruhr region in Germany,
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about 50 miles from where I grew up.
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As coal goes, it's actually quite high-end.
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It's very dry, it has a high share of carbon in it.
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Both those things mean you can't only burn it
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to produce power and heat,
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but you can use it to make steel.
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Now why am I telling you this?
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By the end of this talk,
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I want to have convinced you that we can make a huge step forward
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in the great fight against climate change
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by just spending one to two percent more on things that we buy.
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And the path of this coal is going to help me with it.
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But ...
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back to steel.
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What you have to know about steelmaking is that it's a humblingly brutal process.
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These huge furnaces that tear apart and recombine elements and materials
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that have literally been around for millions of years,
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at temperatures of up to more than 2,000 degrees Celsius.
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It's a triumph of industrialization,
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but it's terrible for the climate.
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More than five percent of all man-made emissions
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currently come from making steel.
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And of all the many challenges we face to save the climate,
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this one's particularly hard to solve.
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Now, why is that?
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The first reason is technical.
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There are technologies to produce low-carbon steel.
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We can, for example, capture the CO2
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and pump it back under the earth --
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that's called carbon capture and storage.
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Or we can move to entirely new processes
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that, for example, run on low-carbon hydrogen instead of coal.
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But all of these are currently only at a piloting stage.
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The second reason is economical.
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This is likely going to be expensive.
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And to illustrate that,
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let's compare the steel challenge to that of companies in other sectors.
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If you're in, say, manufacturing,
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most of your emissions come from the power you consume
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for things like conveyor belts, robots, drives and so on.
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You can eliminate them by switching to renewables,
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which isn't that expensive anymore.
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In most cases, this won’t cost you more than 10 euros per ton of CO2,
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probably a lot less.
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Other companies have more energy-intensive processes
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that require a lot of heat to operate.
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They generate more emissions by burning fossil fuels directly,
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and that's more expensive to get rid of.
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Now let's assume, across all of their processes,
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it costs them, on average, five times as much,
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somewhere between 40 and 50 euros per ton of CO2.
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Now if a steel company wants to move to zero emissions,
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it either needs to invest significantly in upgrading all of its current plants
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and into infrastructure that transports CO2
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from its plants to a storage site,
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or it needs to close all its plants and build entirely new ones
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that, for example, run on low-carbon hydrogen.
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According to industry studies, this can cost them 10 times as much,
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in the ballpark of 100 euros per ton of CO2,
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and the costs for a ton of steel could increase by as much as 50 percent.
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Now, to make matters even worse,
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our steel company operates in the commodity business;
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it almost exclusively competes on price.
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And it has shitty margins already:
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that means saving CO2 is expensive,
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but its profit per ton of CO2 is very low,
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and this puts it in the uncomfortable company
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of only a few other sectors,
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the so-called hard-to-abate sectors club,
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all the industries like cement and chemicals,
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that have equally messy industrial processes
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and require very high temperatures to operate,
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or aviation and shipping,
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that need to invest a lot of energy
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to move very large and heavy objects over longer distances.
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And hard-to-abate sectors are one of the larger dilemmas
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of international climate action,
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because discussions around decarbonization usually go roughly like this:
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Well, the activist says,
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"Your emissions are harming the planet and threatening humanity.
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You need to change immediately."
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And the company answers,
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"I know. But if I invest in low-carbon technologies,
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and the next guy doesn't,
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we'll be more expensive and go out of business.
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It won't help the climate.
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So first, I need a level playing field."
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Both understandable positions,
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but bringing down emissions is kind of urgent,
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and a global level playing field,
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in which, say,
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all countries agree on one mutual price for carbon emissions,
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probably won't materialize anymore in my lifetime.
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So this is where the discussions usually reach a stalemate,
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and where my talk would therefore end.
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But would it end here, I wouldn’t have been invited to hold it,
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and I already promised you
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that saving the planet does not have to break the bank.
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So let's maybe follow the path of our lump of coal
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just a little further.
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The last time we left it, it had helped make steel,
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which, climate impact notwithstanding,
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is one of the key building blocks of our economies.
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It's in many, many things,
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from huge structures to everyday household items
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like refrigerators or washing machines.
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We use it to build wind turbines,
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which we need to save emissions in the power sector,
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and we use it to build our cars,
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which is the part of the journey I'd like us to follow next.
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Now, in today's typical car,
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steel can be found in many, many different parts.
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You can assume that an average European midsized sedan
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with a 30,000 euro price tag
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contains about one ton of it.
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To produce one ton of steel, in Europe,
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generates a bit less than two tons of carbon emissions.
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In other countries, like China, it's a bit more, so let's round to two.
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Now we've learned earlier
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that moving to low-carbon steel can increase its costs
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by as much as 50 percent.
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If history tells us anything,
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then these costs will likely decrease over the long run,
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if humans truly put their mind, their muscle, their money behind it.
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But, for the sake of this argument, let's stick to these costs,
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plus 50 percent.
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In the case of our European midsize sedan, this translates into ...
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wait for it ...
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200 euros.
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Wait, that can't be right.
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That's not even a percent of the final sales value.
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Well, let's do the math.
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If you spend 30,000 euros for a car, what are you actually paying for?
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Well, first of all, the car company needs to make money.
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So the first 20 percent are for its margin, for marketing,
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the whole sales organization, overhead and so on.
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The car needs to be assembled --
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another 20 percent goes to production.
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First, the parts of the car have to be assembled --
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40 percent go to suppliers.
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In this whole process,
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many things need to be moved from A to B and back,
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so more goes to transportation.
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Now only 15 percent of the price of the car
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is actually for the materials in it.
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Things like the battery, aluminum, plastics, glass,
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and two percent for the steel.
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This means that materials
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that make up 90 percent of a car's emission footprint
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by the time that I can buy it in the dealership
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make up only 15 percent of its costs.
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And it means that even [though] the car company has to pay 50 percent more
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for the steel in the car,
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this only translates into a very small markup
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on my final sales price.
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Now you would rightly argue that steel isn't the only thing
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creating emissions in the car.
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And that's, of course, correct.
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So we did the math for other commodities and processes as well.
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And it turns out building a 30,000 euro car
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out of exclusively carbon-neutral materials
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would only increase its price to 30,500 euros,
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only 500 euros extra.
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It's less than two percent more.
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Buying that same car in sunset red instead of black
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would cost me 700 euros extra.
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Fancier rims -- 1,000 euros extra.
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Leather seats -- 2,000 euros extra.
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You get the picture.
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So let's imagine:
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that same discussion we had earlier, but with a car producer in the middle,
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where the activist says,
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"Your emissions are harming the planet and threatening humanity.
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You need to change immediately."
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And now a car producer answers,
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"I know.
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But if I invest in low-carbon materials, and the next guy doesn't,
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my car will be two percent more expensive.
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Wait ...
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My customers might actually pay that.
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And I can market all my cars as carbon-neutral.
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Steel producer,
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your steel is creating too many emissions in my car.
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You have to change immediately."
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"I can make low-carbon steel for you,
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but it will be more expensive."
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"How much more expensive?"
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And now, we at least have a dialog.
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Almost everything about the way we currently live
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currently contributes to global warming.
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Most of the things we buy come with a heavy emissions backpack
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that few of us are really aware of.
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What I want you to understand
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is that we can eliminate a lot of these emissions
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by just spending one to two percent more on things that we buy.
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We've learned what it would cost to produce a carbon-neutral car.
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So how about a carbon-neutral smartphone?
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Three euros extra.
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That's 13 cents a month on a two-year plan.
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A carbon-neutral pair of jeans? 60 to 70 cents extra.
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Even building a house out of carbon-neutral materials
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would only increase its costs by two to three percent,
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and even less in good locations.
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There are six supply chains
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that are responsible for almost half of all global emissions
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that we can impact directly through our purchasing decisions.
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Those are things like food, construction, fashion,
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consumer goods, electronics and, of course, automotive.
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And just like in the car example,
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materials make up only a fraction of the final sales price in most of them.
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Addressing these emissions could be a huge step forward
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for international climate action.
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It would enable customer-facing companies
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that can benefit from marketing carbon-neutral products
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to address a multiple of their direct emissions footprints.
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And many of these emissions are in sectors like steel,
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that can shoulder the costs on their own.
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Some are in countries that don’t yet regulate emissions aggressively enough.
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Take the Chucks I’m wearing now.
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Me being willing to spend two percent more on them
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could have reduced the production emissions in China.
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Now I'm well aware that not everyone can easily afford
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to spend these two percent extra,
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but we have to be aware that the economic consequences,
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let alone the human ones,
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of not spending this money,
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would be far, far worse.
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We have to move to net zero.
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Fairly distributing the costs of this
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is one of the many challenges
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that we as a society will need to deal with.
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I'm also not saying that this will be easy.
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Understanding supply-chain emissions is unbelievably cumbersome.
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Engaging with suppliers to address them takes a lot of effort.
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What we would argue is that, for many companies,
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the chance to market a truly carbon-neutral product
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at just a one-to-two percent higher price
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should be well worth this effort.
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Just imagine:
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you're standing in a store,
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with two brands of the same product in front of you.
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One is carbon-neutral -- it costs two percent more.
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Which of these two products would you rather buy?
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Imagine you had the chance
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to work for either one of these two companies.
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Who would you rather work for?
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Imagine you were an investor.
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On which of these two companies would you bet your money?
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Which of these two do you think will be more successful in the long run?
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To solve the climate crisis, there's still a lot we need to figure out.
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There are many challenges we need to overcome.
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But economics don't have to be one of them.
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Thank you.
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