Nature Science

EXCITING PROGRESS RE: CLIMATE CHANGE!

PROGRESS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

More energy from the Sun hits the Earth in one hour than humans use in an entire year.

We are finally developing ways to use this to our advantage.

While the loudest news about climate change has generally been depressing, frustrating, and scary lately, it’s important to be aware of progress that’s being made right now. It’s significant. We better understand our threats, but we better understand our opportunities as well. And developments are underway, already exhibiting success. There’s reason to have hope.

There are enough leaders, both in public and private sectors, around the world that are woke…. They understand that climate change is an urgent challenge and they are committed to developing solutions to avert catastrophe and create sustainable stable life. It is a pivotal time.

The Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEC) is a unique group of investors who are patient and risk tolerant, global corporations that produce or consume energy in vast quantities, and financial institutions with the capital necessary to finance the world’s largest infrastructure projects. The network extends into every sector of the global economy, supported by strong voices with big wallets, like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, Marc Benioff, Jack Ma, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, to name a few.

Building tops seen above the clouds and fog.

These leaders know that innovation is key. And together they are funding and supporting research and development to fuel things like scientific advances in crop science, which can help farmers deal with changing weather patterns.

Mission Innovation, pledged by a coalition of 23 countries, is committed to doubling their spending on energy R&D by 2020. Their total commitment is more than $30 billion, to date, with a growing list of partners, including those in the private sector.

Blazing sunset at the beach.

BEC is working to speed up the pace of progress because we are simply running out of time.

Their goal is to bring ideas out of the lab and into the market much faster. Public and private funding for energy research often isn’t coordinated, so many promising technologies never make it to market.

Currently, BEC is working with four countries—Canada, Mexico, France, and the United Kingdom—as well as the European Commission on ways to coordinate public and private efforts.

Solar fuel technology design resembles bubble wrap.

Breakthrough Energy Ventures, $1 billion clean-energy investment fund, has identified five areas that are especially promising but also underfunded, the focus of their investments:

Grid-scale storage. We need breakthroughs in storage— storing energy for use when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
Liquid fuels, which use sunlight to create fuels, could power airplanes, trucks, and other big polluters without adding more carbon to the atmosphere.
Mini-grids are networks that can deliver electricity locally, to a neighborhood or village, without being connected to a centralized grid.
Alternative building materials that are carbon-neutral are important giving the surge in demand for these items.

Two West African farmers review their seed stock.

About 800 million poor people in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia rely on agriculture for their food and income. As the climate warms, this is completely under threat. Mass migrations are predicted unless this problem is solved.

Tractors working the beautiful green fields.

There are 3 areas that can help farmers:

Improving crops - to create more yield
Protecting crops, by making them able to resist diseases and tolerate the droughts and floods that will become more frequent.
Managing crops in a changing climate—helping them analyze their soil, for example, or use water more efficiently.

Bird flies off in the horizon against a spectacular orange sunrise.

BEC is co-funding a fellowship program that will train 600 African and European scientists. The European Commission is also committing more than $300 million over the next three years, bringing the total to over $600 million in new money through 2020.

Beautiful solar farm in England.

IMAGE CREDITS:

Image: by Eric Lynch. “Sunset.”
Image: Courtesy of Breakthrough Energy.
Image: by fdecomite. “Sunset and Lava Sea.”
Image: “One radically new design for a solar fuels technology looks like bubble wrap, so it would be easy (and cheap) to make and install.” Courtesy of Lewis Research Group.
Image: Courtesy of World Bank Photo Collection. “The West African Agricultural Productivity Program is providing one-time subsidies on the sale of seeds.”
Image: Courtesy of Breakthrough Energy.
Image: by Bas Bogers. “The Sun.”
Image: Courtesy of Breakthrough Energy.
Image: by Tim Cronin of CIFOR. Landscape of Kenya.
Image: by Ian D. Keating. “Glacial Retreat.” Sawyer Glacier, Tracy Arm Fjord.
Alaska. USA.
Image: by Ralf Peter Reimann. “Sunrise.”