Axios AM Climate Truths: Future of climate tech

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A lot of mature technology already in use can reduce the impact of climate change — but to really hold global warming in check, experts say we need breakthroughs too.

Why it matters: The world is nowhere close to achieving — or even starting — the emissions cuts needed to keep the Paris Agreement's temperature targets within reach.

To get there, today's technologies, such as renewable energy sources and electric vehicles, will have to be deployed faster. But it will also take investment in tech that's close to being deployed at scale in some cases, but nowhere near it in others.

In other words, the glass on climate-saving tech looks half full if you squint right — but half full isn't enough.

The big picture: The technologies that cut carbon emissions from electricity, transportation, heavy industry and farming can be viewed on a spectrum.

On one end are established and increasingly mainstream systems like solar, wind, heat pumps and electric cars that are gaining market share.

The good news is that renewables are economically competitive now. Right now, EVs are typically more expensive than gas-powered cars. But battery costs are on a downward march, and many EVs are already cheaper than internal-combustion models on a lifetime fuel cost basis.

Then, in the middle, there's a wide swath of technologies that are well known but require varying degrees of advances on cost and scale, such as carbon capture, "green" hydrogen, long-duration battery storage and cleaner aviation fuels.

And on the other end are new, unproven systems that, if deployed at scale, could make a major dent in greenhouse gas emissions or be used to bring countries closer to their net zero goals. 

Think, for instance, of "direct air capture" and other methods of hastening removal of CO2 that's already in the atmosphere — as opposed to carbon capture, which blocks the CO2 from entering the atmosphere in the first place.

By the numbers: According to an International Energy Agency analysis of what's needed to reach net zero emissions by 2050:

Roughly 80% of the emissions cuts needed through 2030 would come from technologies already on the market, but stronger policies and investment are needed to speed up adoption, the analysis finds. 

But nearly half (46%) of the cuts that would be needed in 2050 are from technologies that are at the demonstration or prototype phase.

"In heavy industry and long distance transport, the share of emissions reductions from technologies that are still under development today is even higher," the IEA notes.

Between the lines: Expert groups have sketched out various scenarios for which technologies will be most important to achieve the 2050 goal.  

For example, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) foresees a greater role for carbon dioxide removal methods. 

The common thread, however, is that technologies under development today could soon become a linchpin of our strategy to hold global warming below potentially catastrophic levels.

Also, no single technological breakthrough will save us from global warming's effects. 

What they're saying: Stanford energy expert Arun Majumdar tells Axios he's an optimist on the progression of climate tech that's not yet at commercial scale, though he also offered some caveats.

He said the progress on solar, wind and batteries has been "fantastic," but "that took 30 years. The only thing is that we cannot wait for 30 more years. And so the question is, can we accelerate some of the innovations going on?"

Majumdar listed some of the many outstanding needs, such as decarbonizing heavy industries like cement and steel. Others include greatly cutting costs for long-duration energy storage on power grids, as well as coming up with ways to tackle atmospheric methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

"We need to figure out a way to remove methane from the atmosphere. That's an R&D problem that I think we should pay attention to," said Majumdar.

What we're watching: the progression of policies and investment worldwide.

The U.S. has a basket of policies to accelerate the use of existing tech, bring less mature systems to scale, and boost R&D and demonstration of systems that are still in early development.

The new climate law provides an unprecedented level of new or expanded tax incentives for renewables, EVs, carbon capture, energy efficiency upgrades, energy storage, "clean" hydrogen and more.

$270 billion of the law's $369 billion in climate spending comes via tax incentives, per the Treasury Department.

Elsewhere, the bipartisan infrastructure law steers over $21 billion into demonstration projects for advanced nuclear, long-duration storage, industrial decarbonization and more.   

1. The steady progress of climate tech

There's a lot of technology already in use, but experts say we need breakthroughs too.

Illustration of a large cursor arrow pointing upwards towards an image of the Earth, and surrounded by graphic shapes and lines

Climate truths

Climate Truths

A lot of mature technology already in use can reduce the impact of climate change — but to really hold global warming in check, experts say we need breakthroughs too.Why it matters: The world is nowhere close to achieving — or even starting — the emissions cuts needed to keep the Paris Agreement&#x27;s temperature targets within reach.

Ominous forecasts about the impact of climate change serve as the backdrop for the world — led by U.S. lawmakers and companies — to debate big action on the problem, which could upend energy systems and our way of life.

Energy & Environment

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

A world hurtling toward a frighteningly hot future is driving interest in geoengineering — unproven, controversial technologies with a sci-fi flavor that could temporarily freeze global warming in its tracks but not solve the underlying problem.

Why it matters: Ethical, geopolitical and practical considerations must be wrestled with regarding solar radiation management, or SRM — the most discussed and researched method of geoengineering. 

State of play: Geoengineering, which refers to deliberate interference with the climate to try to counteract global warming impacts, may be the ultimate climate tech Band-Aid capable of temporarily covering up global warming.

But it remains controversial because of geopolitical worries, climate justice and equity concerns, long-term climate change risks, and other considerations.  

Plus, SRM, which involves injecting tiny particles known as sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere to reflect incoming solar radiation, would also only mask global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels.

Only steep emissions cuts and, ultimately, carbon removal can bring global warming in check. 

Driving the news: With the world on course to overshoot the Paris Agreement's temperature limits, geoengineering could be used to cap global warming until the technology is available at scale to draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

More severe climate disasters, such as deadly heat waves and flooding, could push developing countries to demand the use of geoengineering for their very survival, according to Janos Pasztor, a climate scientist and veteran diplomat who leads the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative.

Solar radiation management could accomplish this in theory, though by altering weather patterns it could also cause harm to some countries and ecosystems. 

Pasztor brought up the hypothetical example of a geoengineering-related disruption of the South Asian monsoon, in a way that harms India but benefits China, two countries with a heavily militarized border. 

That means it is highly unlikely that an individual country or billionaire (even someone like Elon Musk, who already possesses rockets) can unilaterally pursue SRM, according to seven leading experts who spoke with Axios. 

This is because implementing it would require a constant stream of aerosols to be delivered. Otherwise, the world could warm up suddenly, with potentially devastating consequences. 

Successful deployment of SRM would require a fleet of jets or balloons, and at least tacit approval of some of the world's most powerful nations, Pasztor said. 

Zoom in: Currently, several groups of scientists, diplomats, researchers and other experts are working in parallel to think through geoengineering research and possible deployment. None has the imprimatur of an official agency, however. 

The Carnegie group is seeking to put a geoengineering discussion on the agenda at the U.N. General Assembly in September.

Meanwhile, at Harvard University, a research group is seeking to conduct limited tests of SRM technology, while also studying the legal and ethical ramifications of geoengineering.

A panel of experts working under the auspices of the American Geophysical Union, a U.S.-based global scientific society, is seeking to craft a code of ethics for geoengineering research for the first half of next year.

And still another entity, comprising former heads of state and seasoned diplomats, is studying geoengineering governance. Known as The Global Overshoot Commission, it is headed by Pascal Lamy, the former head of the WTO. 

Between the lines: Although much of the attention in the press and scientific community has focused on the risks associated with geoengineering, such as its potential effects on crops and precipitation patterns, there are also risks to not pursuing it, Pasztor told Axios. 

If deploying SRM can limit the severity of the temperature overshoot, a decision not to enlist such technology could be viewed as risky. 

“There are risks if we do SRM ... but there are also very large risks if we reject SRM and allow the planet to continue warming,” said Andy Parker, founder and CEO of The Degrees Initiative.

What to watch: Decisions made by governments or other entities in the next decade may determine whether geoengineering is pursued as part of an approach to tackling climate change. 

Multiple possibilities are on the table, including a worldwide moratorium on geoengineering research and implementation, and finding a suitable government forum, such as the U.N., to oversee its deployment.

The bottom line: “Society needs to come to terms with thinking about the unthinkable,” Pasztor says. In other words, a dystopian future may require dystopian responses.

2. Hacking the planet may be closer than you think

Hacking the planet is closer and more fraught than you might think.

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Climate change

A world hurtling toward a frighteningly hot future is driving interest in geoengineering — unproven, controversial technologies with a sci-fi flavor that could temporarily freeze global warming in its tracks but not solve the underlying problem.Why it matters: Ethical, geopolitical and practical considerations must be wrestled with regarding solar radiation management, or SRM — the most discussed and researched method of geoengineering.

A look at the scientific breakthroughs changing the world, explorations in space and in worlds beyond our own and the threats posed to us by our own planet, both out of our control and of our own making.

Science

Whats Next

Axios What's Next

Re-created from BloombergNEF; Chart: Axios Visuals 

Battery technologies in development could open the door to widespread adoption of electric vehicles by cramming more energy into a cheaper, smaller package.

Why it matters: Consumers won't embrace electric vehicles until they cost about the same as (or less than) gasoline cars and provide a comparable driving range — around 300 miles between charges.

But at an average price of about $62,000, EVs are still too expensive for many, and the high cost of lithium-ion batteries is mostly to blame.

After falling for a decade, battery prices rose in 2022 because of higher raw materials costs.

What's happening: Scientists are trying to develop inexpensive, lightweight next-generation batteries that do it all — hold lots of energy, release power quickly, operate safely and last a long time.

Battery development, however, is a game of trade-offs. High performance on one criterion generally means lower performance on another.

A battery with higher "energy density" (meaning it's designed to store more energy) could overheat and catch fire, for example. 

The challenge is finding the right mix of materials and chemical processes to optimize performance across the board.

What to watch: Most of the industry is betting on solid-state batteries as that game-changing solution.

Solid-state batteries replace the gooey liquid electrolyte that carries lithium ions between the cathode and the anode with a thin ceramic or sulfide-based material that does the same job. 

These next-gen batteries are expected to store twice as much energy as today's lithium-ion batteries — potentially doubling the range of an electric car to 600 miles or more — and possibly recharge in one-third the time.

They'd also be lighter, cheaper and less likely to burst into flames, scientists say.

Many companies are working on the technology, including automakers such as Toyota and Nissan, battery giants Panasonic and Samsung, and startups including QuantumScape and Solid Power.

Yes, but: Despite encouraging lab results, the industry has yet to prove it can scale the technology for mass production, meaning solid-state batteries are still five or 10 years away from powering cars.

Meanwhile, better performance and lower costs can be squeezed from today's EV batteries in other ways, such as adding silicon to graphite anodes or shifting to pure "lithium-metal" anodes, both of which are in development.

For now, some carmakers, including Tesla and Ford, are turning to cobalt- and nickel-free lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, especially for their lower-priced EVs.

Although LFP batteries are cheaper and safer, they provide a shorter driving range than batteries made with cobalt and nickel.

As charging infrastructure improves, however, that shorter driving range might become less of an issue, some experts say.

"There's a prevailing thought that 300 miles is table stakes for the next generation of electric vehicles," says Mark Verbrugge, director of General Motors' Chemical and Materials Systems Laboratory.

"But what about a vehicle with only 200 miles that's two-thirds the cost and could be fast-charged in 15 minutes?"

The bottom line: Solid-state batteries are still the holy grail for EVs.

3. Inside the search for a better electric vehicle battery

Consumers won't embrace electric vehicles until the cost comes way down.

Battery technologies in development could open the door to widespread adoption of electric vehicles by cramming more energy into a cheaper, smaller package.Why it matters: Consumers won&#x27;t embrace electric vehicles until they cost about the same as (or less than) gasoline cars and provide a comparable driving range — around 300 miles between charges.

The rising demand for green tech is leading to a wave of new strategies to reduce the disproportionate impact of climate change on frontline communities across the U.S. 

Driving the news: These tech solutions are being created by diversely owned startups, despite racial and socioeconomic barriers to funding access in the venture capital ecosystem. 

The big picture: Climate impacts aren't distributed equitably. Black and Latino communities in the U.S. are disproportionately vulnerable to the consequences of climate change, which, in the case of heatwaves and extreme temperatures, hits low-income communities the hardest.

And the strategies to reduce the burden of climate change aren't always adopted equally — which makes existing disparities even worse.

For example, public officials are less likely to install EV charging stations in low-income neighborhoods, which leads to charging deserts in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods. That means they're less likely to share in the health benefits of electric vehicles.

Expensive adaptation technologies are another obstacle. The price tag attached to some clean energy solutions — which can be cost-saving — has made these historically inaccessible for low-income households.

Tackling some of these issues is the Upside Tech Alliance, a recently launched initiative led by startups Aclima, Promise, BlocPower and Bitwise Industries.

Aclima CEO Davida Herzl tells Axios that former President Obama helped inspire the collaboration when a dinner last year brought them all together. 

"He's like, 'Your journeys have a lot in common. You all want to serve the public. You all have cities and government as your customer, you're all worried about building meaningful solutions that actually change the game for communities that have been left behind,'" Herzl said. "'Why don't you guys team up?'" 

How it works: By incorporating flexible utility payments and retrofitting low-income housing units to lower energy costs, among other projects, the U.S.-based startups partner with local city leaders and governments to implement equitable emissions reductions and climate strategies.  

In Newark, N.J., Promise rolled out an interest-free payment plan program that's intended to keep households from being disconnected if they can't pay their surging utility bills.

The state of New York is working with Aclima to launch a program focused on measuring emissions block-by-block. It incorporates workforce training designed to provide underrepresented people, including those who were formerly incarcerated, with jobs in the sector.

What they're saying: Herzl noted that the Upside Tech companies are all led by underrepresented founders, while the bulk of startups that get funding aren't.

"It's not just about wrapping it in like a marketing wrapper," Herzl said. "It's about deeply partnering with communities. It's about hiring from communities."

State of play: The VC world has long been haunted by a lack of diversity and representation in capital allocation. 

The global green tech market is projected to be worth more than $60 billion in five years. As of 2022, more than a quarter of every U.S. VC dollar is going to climate tech. 

But in 2021, a little over 2% of U.S. venture dollars went to Latino-owned and women-only founded businesses — a slice of funding that has dwindled in recent years — while Black female founders received just 0.34%. That's despite total VC investment nearly doubling from the year before.

Of note: "I'm a Black woman who grew up next to a refinery," Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins tells Axios. 

"It's been interesting to see when you have no diversity of thought, diversity of demographic, and if you're not measuring impact by the people that are most likely to be harmed by climate change."

The bottom line: By "leveraging public investment for public good," the Upside Tech Alliance is working to cut through the noise and provide solutions for the people most impacted by climate change, Ellis-Lamkins says. 

"We're all Black and brown and founders, and we want our communities to be better." 

4. Climate tech's parity challenge

Despite lack of funding, diversely owned startups are pioneering equity-based solutions to climate change.

Illustration of a Black female business owner with abstract charts.

The rising demand for green tech is leading to a wave of new strategies to reduce the disproportionate impact of climate change on frontline communities across the U.S. Driving the news: These tech solutions are being created by diversely owned startups, despite racial and socioeconomic barriers to funding access in the venture capital ecosystem.

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The tech industry has produced ambitious pledges and tangible steps to limit climate change — but it's also responsible for emissions that make the problem worse.

Why it matters: Giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Google are important — but also controversial — corporate actors on climate change.

The big picture: These and other companies have high-profile pledges and multibillion-dollar initiatives to cut their own emissions, work with suppliers, and seed startups in carbon removal and other climate technologies.

But the industry's massive operations and supply chains — think data centers, on-demand package delivery and much more — require large amounts of energy that's often met with fossil fuels.

How tech is trying to help the environment:

1) Pledges and finance. A number of the largest tech companies have made bold climate commitments. For instance, Microsoft has vowed to be "carbon negative" by 2030. By 2050, it wants to remove from the atmosphere all the CO2 it has emitted since its 1975 founding.

Amazon vows to be "net-zero" emissions by 2040 — no small thing considering its mammoth delivery fleets. 

 But critics say that many of the tech industry's pledges are vague and overly reliant on offsets for reaching their goals. 

“There are serious questions about the integrity of some of those pledges,” Greenpeace USA special projects manager Rolf Sklar told Axios. 

Big tech has also set up sizable VC funds to finance climate tech startups working on carbon removal and other solutions.

2) Renewables. Big tech companies are also big players in renewables and electric vehicles.

Amazon is a key buyer of EVs, including a deal with the startup Rivian to have 100,000 electric package delivery vehicles in use by 2030. Thousands are hitting the road this year, Amazon said over the summer.

The tech industry has been a pioneer in corporate renewable energy procurement. Facebook parent Meta is by far the largest U.S. corporate user of solar power, per the solar sector's main trade group. Amazon and Apple round out the top three.

But environmentalists say these efforts require more scrutiny, too. A recent report by Greenpeace and Stand.Earth finds that many of the largest consumer electronics brands have vowed to use renewables to supply their direct operations by 2030, and Microsoft, Google and Apple are there already.

But of the many consumer electronics companies analyzed, "only Apple has reported significant progress on supply chain decarbonization," it states.

3) The shift from analog to digital. It can have a considerable positive impact as instantly deliverable digital goods can replace bulky goods that had to be shipped. Think books, movies, documents. 

The savings can be significant in terms of both carbon emissions avoided and the use of resources in manufacturing, per the U.N.

And here are the less helpful sides of Big Tech:

1) Data centers. They're a major use of resources, including water and electricity. That said, because they are so resource intensive, tech companies have been working to make them as clean and energy-efficient as possible. 

Google is even working on an ambitious plan to eventually match its data centers' power use with zero-carbon sources on a round-the-clock basis.

2) Cryptocurrency. It had been an outlier, as a digital good that caused a significant environmental impact. That's because some popular currencies used a method known as "proof of work" as part of the mining process. 

Fortunately, most cryptocurrencies, most recently Ethereum, have moved to a less resource-intensive approach. 

The amount of energy being used to mine Bitcoin now exceeds that needed for Big Tech data centers, and much of that relies on coal. "Something has to give in that space," Sklar said.

3) Work with fossil fuel companies. Oil-and-gas producers have been avid consumers of Big Tech's computing power to identify ways of extracting additional resources. 

Critics point to deals like Microsoft's 2019 cloud technology and data deal with Exxon aimed at helping boost production in the prolific Permian Basin in Texas.

The bottom line: Joseph Majkut, who heads the climate program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, credits tech giants with ambition on cutting emissions and their work buying clean power and EVs.

"But net-zero Netflix streaming doesn't reduce emissions from powering your TV, or the rest of the economy. As good as the big tech companies can be on emissions, it's insufficient to tackle climate change," he said in an email exchange.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to note that Microsoft has pledged to be "carbon negative" by 2030, not just to reach "net-zero" emissions by 2030.

5. Big Tech's mixed record on climate

Its impact includes both ambitious pledges and damaging emissions.

The tech industry has produced ambitious pledges and tangible steps to limit climate change — but it&#x27;s also responsible for emissions that make the problem worse.Why it matters: Giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Google are important — but also controversial — corporate actors on climate change.

Energy Policy

Energy Policy Alerts

Data: IEA; Note: Analysis does not include steel or aluminum; Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios

Low-carbon energy products require huge volumes of resources from mining projects — meaning that slashing emissions will bring ecological and human rights perils of its own.

Why it matters: Technologies like electric car batteries, wind turbines, solar panels and hydrogen use unique minerals, including many that are in short supply. 

That means policymakers seeking to switch from fossil fuels to emissions-free energy must also wrestle with the sins of another extractive industry — global mining — that comes with a myriad of environmental and human rights impacts. 

What they're saying: "Clean energy might be possible, but we're a long way from achieving it," says Jim Wormington, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. 

"The extraction of the minerals needed for new energy technologies also impose costs, particularly as they are scaled up, [that fall] on the most vulnerable communities and workers," he adds.

Zoom in: The resource needs — and their tradeoffs — are sobering. 

Take lithium, a chemical key for modern batteries. The International Energy Agency estimates that more than 50 lithium mines will have to open worldwide by 2030 to satisfy countries' net-zero emissions targets. 

A lithium boom could exacerbate drought conditions in some countries. In Chile, lithium extraction threatens to drive rare species like flamingos to extinction, and in Nevada, ranchers fear it could harm water resources. 

Demand for a suite of metals is expected to rise, from ubiquitous materials like copper — a key input for solar photovoltaic systems, wind power and other low-carbon tech — to little-known minerals such as gallium.

Yes, but: Technological innovations and metal recycling can reduce how much new mining is needed for a low-carbon future. 

EVs increasingly rely on batteries with little or no cobalt. Auto executives invested over the last decade in ditching the metal amid reports that child labor was used in mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world's largest cobalt supplier. 

Threat level: "It’s not enough to transition from a dirty energy sector to a clean one. That transition must also be just," USAID administrator Samantha Powers said at last month's U.N. climate talks in Egypt. 

"We can’t let 'green minerals' become the source of the next resource curse," she said.

What to watch: A 2020 report from the World Bank's climate-smart mining initiative warned of a feedback loop: If resource extraction is managed poorly, it will erode support for acting on climate change.

"[I]t is vital that the production and disposal of these technologies do not come at the expense of people and the environment," the report states.

6. The dirty side of clean tech

Low-carbon energy products require huge volumes of resources from extractive mining projects.

Chart showing minerals needed for low-carbon energy

Low-carbon energy products require huge volumes of resources from mining projects — meaning that slashing emissions will bring ecological and human rights perils of its own.Why it matters: Technologies like electric car batteries, wind turbines, solar panels and hydrogen use unique minerals, including many that are in short supply.

The steady progress of climate tech

Illustration of a computer chip on an abstract background of circuitry patterns. 