The Solutions We Have and the Innovations We Need

Introduction

If you know what to look for, the solutions to climate change are already all around us. You’re probably seeing more electric vehicles and charging stations in your community. Maybe you’ve noticed solar panels on houses or wind turbines in the countryside. Or it could be that your local grocery store is stocking more plant-based meat alternatives.

These everyday solutions are evidence of the real and measurable progress we’re already making toward solving climate change, and there’s plenty of cause for optimism when it comes to both mitigation, which involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and adaptation, which aims to lessen the impacts of a changing climate. In both these areas, our strategies and innovations have come a long way.

How much progress have we made? This is a question that the International Energy Agency (IEA) asks in a 2023 report about what it would take to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius. The IEA works with countries around the world to provide analysis and policy recommendations for the energy sector. In their 2023 report, they said we have the technologies to account for about 65% of the emissions reductions necessary to limit warming to that 1.5° C.¹

Let’s take a second to appreciate the importance of that achievement. Just two years earlier, the IEA had released a similar report that said we had about 50% of technology we would need to limit warming 1.5° C. Going from 50% to 65% in just two years is an impressive jump. That growth is thanks to the rapid scaling of just a few key technologies!

Although getting 65% of the way to a goal is certainly something to celebrate, you’ve probably realized that it’s not actually all the way there. Some pieces in our climate change strategy are still missing. To reach our goals, we’re going to need to develop innovations to fill in those gaps.

In this article, we’ll look at both the solutions we have and the innovations we need to reach our climate goals. By understanding both, we can envision a path forward to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

The solutions we have

Let’s start by talking about the solutions we already have. It can sometimes feel like everything you hear about climate change is doom and hopelessness. And while there are real reasons for concern, there is good news when it comes to solving the climate-change problem. In the last decade, positive trends have added up to make a measurable difference.

When it comes to reducing carbon emissions, perhaps the biggest achievement is the progress that has been made toward generating renewable energy. The cost of renewable energy technologies like wind and solar has dropped dramatically in recent years. As the chart shows, the price of electricity from solar declined by 89% between 2009 and 2019. The price of electricity from wind declined by 70% over the same period. These reductions were primarily driven by decreases in the cost of technology. As we deployed more solar and wind systems, the industry learned how to produce them more efficiently, and prices dropped. Lower prices fueled further expansion, creating a positive feedback loop of increasing adoption and decreasing prices. As a result, by 2019, 72% of all new electricity production capacity came from renewables. Solar is now the cheapest source of energy on the planet.

Costs have also dropped for important solutions like battery storage and electric vehicles. This has been fueled by factors including technological advances, greater consumer demand, and government incentives. Other strategies, like using energy more efficiently and taking public transportation, are well known and can be used more widely to reduce emissions.

While some innovators have worked on the clean energy problem, others have found strategies for adapting to a changing climate. Some of the best adaptation solutions are the simplest ones. Local authorities restore natural ecosystems, like wetlands and mangroves, to act as natural barriers against floods. These areas also act as carbon sinks that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Other strategies can be used to protect urban areas, such as resilient infrastructure and smart urban planning. In a world in which climate change can cause health problems, vaccines and high-quality healthcare are also increasingly important adaptation solutions. With increased availability they can be even more impactful.

The innovations we need

The fact that we already have so many solutions is wonderful. But on their own, the solutions we have aren’t enough to solve all our problems. We’re still going to need more innovation.

Climate innovation is the label we give to the research, development, and scaling of new climate solutions. Innovation is not just inventing new devices. It’s also about new approaches to policies, business models, and systems. Innovation means both new technologies and new ways of doing and thinking about things. If we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we’ll need to accelerate innovation faster than ever before. In their 2023 report, the IEA said that limiting warming to 1.5° C would require “huge leaps” in innovation.

What are the leaps we need? To start, we need to protect those who are most vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate. In general, these are people who had very little role in creating the problems of climate change in the first place. We need to develop a wide range of health and agricultural innovations so that those living in areas impacted by extreme drought, flooding, and severe weather have access to nutritious food and fresh water. Because climate change will shift the rainfall and temperature in many areas, we’ll need to develop a variety of high-yield, drought- and flood-resistant crops. These plants must be well-suited to the specific regions in which they’re grown, and they must taste good too!

We also need to develop new technologies to reduce the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere. Hydrogen fuel and advanced biofuels are needed to decarbonize industries that can’t yet run on electricity, industries such as long-distance trucking and aviation. Other industries, steel and cement production, for example, release carbon dioxide as a by-product of the chemical reactions that are part of their processes. So, we’ll need to develop entirely new ways of making these products.

Finally, we’ll need innovative solutions for existing systems that aren’t working the way we need them to. Our current electrical grids, for example, limit our ability to harness the power of renewable energy. They simply aren’t designed to move renewable energy from the sunny or windy areas where it’s produced to the urban centers that have the highest demand. So we need to update our grid, build more transmission lines, and better connect regions across the country. All this will require advances in technology and policy. Similarly, we need innovations that make nuclear plants cheaper to build and safer to operate to meet the world’s growing need for clean energy.

What’s next?

How will we make these leaps? Well, to speed up the pace of innovation, we need governments and companies to invest heavily in the research and development of new technologies. And to create markets for emerging innovations, we need governments, companies, and individuals who can afford it to commit to purchasing them— even if they are more expensive at first. This will drive demand, and ultimately lower prices for everyone.

But not all countries have the resources to invest in innovation. We’ll need grants and loans to support low- income countries as they work to adapt to climate change and decarbonize their economies. Wealthy countries, in particular, have a responsibility to support adaptation efforts and disaster-relief funds in low-income countries. Countries—the US is a good example—who have benefited the most from industrialization and have the highest historical emissions, can ensure poorer countries are able to continue developing in a sustainable way.

We also need to ensure that the health and well-being of everyone is prioritized, both now and in the future. Of course, health and well-being are inextricably linked to a changing climate, and reducing emissions will improve livelihoods everywhere. But adaptation and mitigation efforts must be equally valued and prioritized as we work to solve the problem of climate change. Our actions now—how we embrace the solutions we have and drive the innovation we need—will impact everyone’s future.

1 IEA (2021), Net Zero by 2050, IEA, Paris. https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050