The Rise and Fall of Silicon Valley Bank in the Climate Tech Space

In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with California Climate Tech CEO, Dr Ethan Cohen-Cole, about the impact the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank had on his business and the niche climate tech sector as a whole.

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Far from a 2008 financial domino effect, Ethan says this is a case of ‘one particularly mismanaged institution’, highlighting an unforeseen upside.

In any conversation of this kind, it is critical to state clearly, that all of this is waste of time if anthropogenic carbon emissions are not drastically reduced to zero in the shortest possible time. That is something that is clearly not happening now and something we all need to push for.

What piqued my interest in Capture6 is the potential coupling with existing large-scale technology such as desalination of seawater. In a drier world, we urgently need to make sure we can supply water without further damaging ecosystems. 

The atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases is now so high that we are starting breach critical thresholds in the earth system. We don’t just need to stop burning fossil fuels, we need to accelerate the reduction of atmospheric carbon, down from the current levels of around 420 parts per million to well below 350 parts per million. Policymakers are currently not making the structural changes necessary for a system-wide downward shift of the emissions curve.