Lessons from Climate Week NYC
President & CEO Duncan Wood shares his key takeaways from NY Climate Week.
By Duncan Wood, PhD
Visiting New York City during United Nations General Assembly week is not for the faint-hearted, especially when Climate Week NYC happens to coincide. The bustling midtown streets and the challenge of navigating between meetings added an exciting energy to the experience. Fortunately, I was invited to attend several sessions at Climate Week, so I eagerly ventured into the Manhattan maelstrom.
Here are my four key summarized takeaways from the conference:
The conversation over climate has moved from purely mitigation attempts to mitigation and innovation as a way of adaptation. There is widespread acceptance that we will miss the 2-degree Celsius mark and that emissions reductions are not moving fast enough.
Carbon capture, utilization, and storage are increasingly featured as viable parts of the solution. Direct carbon capture from the air is a technical reality; now, it must be scaled and made cheaper. This will be a game changer and enable continued use of hydrocarbons for longer than we expected.
The cross-over between paradigm-shifting technologies such as AI and Quantum Computing, climate mitigation, and adaptation is becoming a reality. AI will help us map our carbon emissions and reduce them while also helping us find ways of adapting to a hotter, more extreme climate.
The rise of the data-based economy has a darker, more harmful side. Data centers and web-based economies are sucking up vast quantities of power, making it even more difficult for cities, states, and countries to meet their renewable energy and carbon emissions reduction targets.
Overall, despite the moral-sapping quantities of bad news about our failure to act quickly enough, I did detect measurable amounts of hope that we in the United States will be able to adapt to the changing world. Whether the same can be said for those in poorer countries in regions more prone to violent and extreme weather remains to be seen.
Duncan Wood, PhD, is the President and CEO of the Pacific Council on International Policy. Dr. Wood is an internationally renowned specialist on the geopolitics of energy, supply chain policy, critical minerals, Mexican politics, and US-Mexican ties. Previously, Dr. Wood was the Vice President for Strategy and New Initiatives at the Wilson Center and worked alongside the Board of Trustees to design a new strategic plan for the center.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.
