Climate Now

International waters don’t belong to anybody, but everybody is connected to them. Like the global burden created by greenhouse gas emissions from any one country, company or individual, what a single country or corporation chooses to put into the ocean as a climate change solution could be felt by the global community, if it turns out to have negative consequences on ocean chemistry or ecosystems.In this final installment of our deep dive into the potential and risks of ocean carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques, we consider how this nascent industry should be monitored and regulated. We will take a look at the existing international legal frameworks relevant to ocean CDR - how they originated, how they apply, who is responsible for enforcing them, and what oversight needs to be put in place before these technologies start to scale up.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

Did you know plastic bags were originally intended to be an environmental solution? The idea was to replace paper bags in an effort to reduce deforestation. In 1935, cane toads were another fix - they were introduced to Australian sugarcane plantations to control insect pests. But, the ecological disaster this invasive species created far outweighed their agricultural benefit. It is often hard to anticipate the downstream environmental impacts of our actions, even when we are working in good faith to solve a problem. Given the globally interconnected nature of the oceans, and the reality that oceans are so underexplored that we have better maps of other planets in our solar system than we do of the ocean floor, ocean carbon dioxide removal technologies are a category ripe for unintended consequences.So does it make sense to proceed, to continue developing ocean CDR technologies? What are start-ups doing to determine whether their approaches will be safe and effective? What kind of regulatory oversight will be needed for these technologies, and what kinds of information will they have to consider to assess safety and efficacy?In this second installment of our three-part series, we apply a healthy dose of skepticism to these developing ocean CDR technologies. We ask how we can effectively monitor the impacts of ocean CDR, if it can be done at all, and who should be doing it.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

More than 4 billion years ago, when Earth was still in its infancy, the atmosphere held more than 100,000 times the amount of CO2 it does today. Ever so slowly, that CO2 was absorbed into the oceans, where it reacted with rocks of the seafloor or was scavenged by organisms, eventually becoming trapped in sediment and slowly sequestered into Earth’s deep interior. This is the Earth’s deep-carbon cycle - nature’s way of regulating greenhouse gasses.This week, Climate Now takes you on a special three-part podcast series that explores a novel suite of technologies, termed Ocean Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), that aims to speed up Earth’s natural GHG regulator by enhancing the biogeochemical processes already happening in the oceans. In our first episode, we are joined by a suite of entrepreneurs who see the climate-saving and profit-making potential of Ocean CDR, who walk us through what these technologies are, how they work, and why they could be so valuable to mitigating climate change.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

On June 30, 2022, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision on the case “EPA v. West Virginia,” ruling in a 6-3 vote that the EPA exceeded its statutory authority by setting greenhouse gas emissions standards that would effectively require utilities to shift away from fossil fuel-sourced power generation to renewables.At the time of the decision, it was met with a raft of alarmist headlines, forecasting that it would be a disaster for climate change mitigation, and that it threatens the future regulatory authority of all federal agencies. Is it really that bad?In this episode, Michael Gerrard, professor of professional practice in climate change law and policy at Columbia University, helps us understand exactly what the EPA v. West Virginia decision said, and what its impact is likely to be.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

In 2017, the V.C. Summer Nuclear Plant expansion - meant to hail the renaissance of nuclear power in the US - came screeching to a halt. The project, to build two new reactors at an existing South Carolina facility, was canceled after being delayed more than a year, costing $9 billion USD, and still being only 40% complete. Now, the only new nuclear project in the works in the U.S. is the Vogtle Plant expansion in Georgia; a project also more than a year behind schedule, and billions of dollars over budget. Still, nuclear projects remain a focus of government and think tank decarbonization strategies. Why?Dr. Amory Lovins, adjunct professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, and international authority on the clean energy transition, joins Climate Now to explain why he thinks nuclear should no longer be considered as a source of energy. For Amory, it's not just the chance of environmental catastrophe or nuclear proliferation that make it a non-starter, it's the economics.00:00 - Introducing Climate Now00:32 - Introducing Amory Lovins01:12 - How much energy is supplied from nuclear power02:02 - Amory explains why he believes that nuclear has no business case16:25 - If nuclear has no business case, why do governments continue to invest in it?Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

Heating, cooling and electrifying buildings produces nearly one fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, but by employing existing energy efficient technologies and switching to renewables, we could cut 87% of building-related emissions by 2050. So, how do we get there?Climate Now speaks with two companies working to eliminate the barriers to decarbonizing buildings. Andy Frank, founder of Sealed, explains how Sealed makes it easier for homeowners to implement energy efficiency improvements by reducing upfront costs and managing the improvement project. Jeff Hendler and Zohra Roy of Logical Buildings share how their company empowers real estate managers and building owners with the data they need to optimize their energy usage.00:00 Andy Frank, Sealed15:58 Jeff Hendler and Zohra Roy, Logical BuildingsFollow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

In the international carbon offset market, the average price of removing one tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere is still below $15 USD, nowhere near enough to cover the costs of carbon capture and storage (CCS). As Dr. Sheila Olmstead (University of Texas, Austin) explained in a recent Climate Now podcast episode, this is why CCS is one of the few climate technologies not experiencing exponential growth. “Unless there's a market for captured CO2, then it doesn't make economic sense… to adopt these carbon capture technologies.” But what if, instead of making captured CO2 the only marketable product, the capture is accomplished while also producing other goods and services?Climate Now spoke with three pioneers developing startup programs in California that plan to use biowaste (that is, agricultural residues or vegetation cleared from forests to increase their resiliency to drought, fire or infestation) to produce hydrogen fuel and CO2. The technique is called 'bioenergy and carbon capture and storage,' or BECCS. The hydrogen can be sold and the CO2 captured and stored underground. Join us for our discussion with George Peridas of Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Jonathan Kusel of the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment, and Josh Stolaroff of Mote, to hear how this approach could make CCS economically feasible, perhaps even profitable, while also providing a benefit to local communities already experiencing the worst impacts of climate change, and an essential service for the well-being of our planet.01:40 - Introduction to BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage)02:06 - Introduction to BICRS (biomass carbon removal and storage)03:10 - Quick overview of carbon capture utilization and storage04:50 - Challenges of carbon capture 05:27 - George Peridas and Jonathan Kusel on the Indian Valley Wood Utilization Campus project14:57 - The importance of hydrogen15:47 - Joshuah Stolaroff explains how to produce hydrogen using waste biomass17:20 - Introduction to Mote28:41 - Carbon capture skepticism and risksFollow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

Each year, we produce about 30 billion tonnes of concrete globally. That’s nearly 10,000 pounds, or more than 2 entire cars-worth of concrete, per person, per year.  We produce enough steel to build more than 2700 Empire State Buildings annually.  We produce more than 100 pounds of plastic per person, each year. And with all of this material production, we also produce a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.Nearly one-third of global GHG emissions come from industry, with steel, concrete, and chemical manufacturing (i.e. plastics) being the largest contributors. These industries are tough to decarbonize because they require performing chemical reactions at high temperatures, not easily achieved through electrification, and because they emit greenhouse gasses as a by-product.Climate Now sat down with Dr. Rebecca Dell of the ClimateWorks Foundation, the largest philanthropic program in the world dedicated to reducing and eliminating greenhouse gas emissions that come from the material economy. Dr. Dell shares how these industries are approaching decarbonization, and what kind of technological, policy and market innovations will be needed to reduce the industrial carbon footprint.01:32 - Rebecca Dell's background04:17 - ClimateWorks04:30 - What is the "industrial sector" in the climate context?05:48 - Decarbonizing petrochemicals (i.e. plastics)17:51 - Decarbonizing concrete and cement30:04 - Decarbonizing steelFollow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

Are we underestimating the potential of increased efficiency? It wouldn’t be the first time.In 2021, the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasted a 50% increase in global energy demand by 2050. Such forecasts have echoes of the 1970’s, when – in the middle of a global energy crisis – forecasters were anticipating as much as a 300% increase in energy demand over the next 3 decades. Those forecasters missed the mark by about 250%, because they didn’t count on the significant efficiency improvements in home appliances, vehicle fuel economy, industry and home energy demands that kickstarted in the 1980’s.In this episode, featuring Dr. Amory Lovins of RMI and Dr. Roger Aines of Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL), we explore whether energy forecasters are missing the mark again: projecting only incremental efficiency gains in the next 30 years, despite the fact that we already have the technologies and smart design approaches that would allow global energy demand to decrease by more than 70%, while still providing the same services of today.Joined by a group of LLNL scientists, Amory, Roger and host James Lawler discuss the potential of smart and integrative design approaches that can provide savings in both energy emissions and costs, as well as the obstacles that are keeping us from taking full advantage of these approaches. Listen wherever you like to get your podcasts, or listen with the transcript at climatenow.com!00:12 - Introduction00:40 - The Energy Efficiency Resource03:02 - Why focus on efficiency?07:11 - How efficiency increases security and reliability of energy delivery08:16 - How efficiency can be cost effective11:39 - Energy efficiency trends in the last 50 or so years15:08 - How to think about efficiency moving forward23:43 - What methods do we need to employ to get to net-zero. What role does efficiency play?Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

“Inertia is a hell of a thing. Inertia is there, and there is very little motivation for an incumbent to change course. So you have to have that disruption from the outside. The same thing with financial services.” - Marilyn Waite, Climate Finance FundIn the 2019/2020 fiscal year, the global climate finance sector reached a record 632 billion US dollars. Unfortunately - that is a little short of the more than $3 trillion US dollars needed each year to keep warming under 2 degrees C, according to the IPCC. The Climate Finance Fund (CFF) is a philanthropic organization whose mandate is to close that gap by mobilizing capital towards climate solutions.How do they do that? CFF focuses on bringing creative climate solutions to market with early investing, and supporting industry-led initiatives and regulatory changes that encourage financial institutions to divest from fossil fuels and invest in clean technology. Managing Director Marilyn Waite joined Climate Now to share the changes CFF’s projects have already brought about, who the big disruptors are in climate finance, and how to get the world’s biggest banks and lenders to take note that it is time to go green.01:23 - Marilyn Introduction04:09 - What is CFF?07:58 - Clean Energy Credit Union10:41 - Clean energy borrowing today12:14 - Impact-first VCs and Climate Fintech17:43 - Banking on Climate Chaos20:50 - Systems change - Partnership for Carbon Accounting FinancialsFollow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.