How to decarbonize the grid and electrify everything | John Doerr and Hal Harvey
Climate Change, Energy & Pollution VideoSummary
A zero-carbon economy was thought to be a pipe dream just a decade ago, but now we could achieve this goal by working towards two fundamental steps: decarbonizing the grid and electrifying everything. This fascinating conversation between John Doerr and Hal Harvey explores just how we can begin to do this. Combating climate change is a global challenge, but climate change itself is unbalanced, the smallest polluting countries will be impacted the most. The two speakers stress the importance of policy in going zero-carbon, major polluters need to increase clean energy research and development, prices of clean energy technology also need to be reduced and policy needs to encourage the wider adoption and implementation of clean energy in a number of sectors. Crucially you don’t set one standard that companies must adhere to, you constantly update standards as they are matched to ensure continuous improvement. Through this, we don’t reach arbitrary levels deemed sufficient for the time but constantly apply pressure to drive industry in a greener and greener direction. Getting policymakers on board with these ideas to push towards a zero-carbon economy may just be the biggest challenge here. John Doerr’s and Hal Harvey’s discussion is highly enlightening and is a very worthy watch.