Why now is the best time to invest in climate tech

Summary

Conventional wisdom suggests that climate tech is entering a winter season, where political and investor interest and investment levels are cooling — an ironic contrast with the climate itself, which keeps delivering years of record warmth. A new report from the International Energy Agency suggests there has never been a better time to go all-in on climate tech. In comparing it with the IEA’s stance from a decade ago, it’s clear the world’s expectations about the future have changed dramatically in less than a generation. In 2014, the International Energy Agency assumed that, absent any international effort to rein in carbon pollution, emissions would continue to go up and to the right. Even the most optimistic forecast at the time predicted a linear increase, just with a lower slope. Those scenarios essentially took the trend line from the previous few years and extended it through 2050. Fast forward to today, and the IEA’s current worst-case scenario is essentially 2014’s best case. A decade ago, without any major changes, the world was headed toward 46 metric gigatons of CO2 per year by 2040. If countries cut emissions as they had pledged, the best we could have hoped for was 38 metric gigatons per year by 2040. Forecasts from the IEA have shifted significantly in the last decade.Image Credits:International Energy Agency/TechCrunch under a CC BY 4.0 (opens in a new window) license. Today, if countries continue with business as usual, the IEA expects emissions will level off at 38 metric gigatons per year. If countries follow through on their pledges, the IEA suggests we’ll hit about 33 metric gigatons per year by 2040. It’s still far off from what’s needed to hit net zero by 2050, but it’s a significant shift in a short amount of time. If the IEA’s earlier projections turned out to be overly pessimistic compared with where we are today, what does that say about today’s projections? How you answer that question depends on how you interpret trend lines. Techcrunch ...