The Five Horsemen and the Five Superheroes of the Net Zero Transition
You can now listen to audio adaptations of the two-parter I wrote for BloombergNEF, laying out the bull and bear cases for the Net Zero transition. Two great pods for your next dog-walk, run or drive!
In a world of polarized politics, click-obsessed media and enshittified social media - it can be very hard to separate signal from noise. One minute getting to Net Zero will be straightforward, the next minute it is a lost cause.
To help separate signal from noise, in my recent two-parter for BloombergNEF, I laid out the bull and bear cases, as best as I could.
In Part I, started with the bad news, the Five Horseman of the Net Zero Transition. Five reasons why anyone hoping for rapid global decarbonization is kidding themselves: the poor economics of clean solutions beyond wind, solar and batteries; the inadequacy of our current electrical grid; soaring demand for critical minerals; political and social inertia; and regulatory capture and predatory delay.
In Part II, I countered with the Five Superheroes of the Net Zero Transition: five forces which may be even more powerful than the Five Horsemen, and which give cause for optimism: exponential growth; systems solutions; no more hard-to-abate sectors; disappearing demand; and the Primary Energy Demand fallacy.
Will the Five Superheroes vanquish the Five Horsemen? I’m not revealing that here. You’ll have to read or listen to find out!
Now listen to audio adaptations on the Cleaning Up podcast/YouTube!
As always, my gratitude goes to my former colleagues at Bloomberg for letting me release these audio adaptations.
Net Zero Will Be Harder Than You Think: The Five Horsemen of the Transition
Net Zero Will Be Easier Than You Think: The Five Superheroes of the Transition
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