Summary contents, transcript, and podcast links below. Listen on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to pods. Watch the video above or on YouTube.
Contents chapters
00:33 Why honesty matters in climate communication
03:51 China’s role in climate progress
09:34 Population growth and climate impact
13:38 The concept of abundance in sustainability
21:15 Hope and optimism for the future
26:50 Can we transition fast enough?
35:17 Decarbonising electricity and transport
41:03 Cement and other climate challenges
45:28 Rethinking “net zero” goals
49:09 Individual action vs systemic change
52:26 AI’s role in sustainability
55:48 Personal insights and creative habits
58:20 Philanthropy and high-impact giving
1:11:50 Current projects and career advice
Transcript (helped by AI so errors possible)
Ben: Hey everyone. I'm super excited to be welcoming. Back to the podcast, Hannah Richie. Hannah is one of the most thoughtful, smartest, and lucid writers on climate and sustainability matters. She has a new book out clearing the Air, which looks at 50 questions and answers around climate. It's available in the UK now and in the US from March, 2026.
The book, just like her last one, is Excellent. Hannah, welcome.
Hannah: Thanks very much. That was a very lovely intro.
Ben: You are most welcome. How important is honesty? I ask because one and a half degrees, which I'm not sure is properly understood as a point target, but in any event, one and a half degrees when I speak to a lot of scientists seems to be off the table, but a lot of them seem to be really reluctant to be publicly talking about it.
And there's a question of sort of white lies and things like that. And the first question you tackled in your book is whether we are too late and what does it mean to be a three degree, four degree, five degree, six degree world. But I'm almost interested in also how important you think honesty is among scientists when communicating and what do you think about our communication around the one and a half degree target?
Hannah: Yeah, I think that, I mean, I. I would obviously say, I think honesty is, is, is very crucial here. I think that, um, I think especially when it comes to scientific communication, trust in science, especially when you're talking about issues like climate change, where there are the risks of climate change, but on the solution side, you know.
That requires large investments, that acquire, requires large policy changes that requires large, uh, behavioral changes from individuals. And there is a sense that you people need to be able to trust in the science and, and what is being told to them if they are to back the solutions and policies that are needed for us to actually tackle climate change.
And I think when it comes to the one and a half degree target, I think you're right that if you actually ask most climate scientists, is this in any way plausible that we manage to stay below one and a half degrees? The vast majority would say no. Right? The reality is it's too late for us to reduce emissions quickly enough to stay below one and a half degrees.
And from my perspective, I think we should be honest about that and I think we should be honest about that for several reasons. I think one is that the way that often that the one and a half degree target has been framed is that I think now many people in the public having their heads once we pass one point.
Five degrees, you know, there's this cliff that we're gonna fall off, right? And something really dramatic is gonna happen 'cause they see it as this kind of threshold that we should never, ever pass. And the reality is, I think from a public trust perspective, the reality is that we've all passed one and a half degrees and nothing dramatic is going to happen, right?
Climate risk will gradually rise as we increase in temperatures, but nothing huge is gonna happen exactly as we pass one and a half degrees. So you're gonna have the situation where the public who starts to believe, um, that, that, that something dramatic is gonna happen, um, is living in a 1.52 degrees C world.
And they're looking around and they're thinking, we were told this is gonna kind of be the end of the world. And it's not. And I think that there is that risk that they start to lose trust and credibility in science, which is so crucial. If we, again, if we were to get people to, to actually act on this.
Ben: Agreed. I think that seems really sensible. And, and I think without honesty, 'cause we get enough about people not trusting experts or not trusting politicians. So the more you damage that, the, the harder it gets in the book. You answer 50 questions, but I was wondering, is there a favorite question you like to be asked or is there a question you always want to be asked but no one does?
Hannah: I'm not sure about the latter one. I think the, the one that I think is most interesting when people ask it, because there's so many tangential questions and, and and discussion points that come off of it is what about China? Right? So, uh, often it is a very, very common in countries like the UK actually there are two questions in the book that are linked.
In the UK for example, what's often brought up is that, you know, the UK is now only 1% of the world's CO2 emissions. What we do doesn't matter. Why should we really do anything at all? And the follow up to that is. Yeah, that's because China is emitting so much and it's purely on China to, to, to reduce and tackle this.
And, and those two questions are very much linked. And I think the question of what's happening in China is so rich in detail and, and tangential discussions that I think it's, it's, it's always a, a good one to get asked. I think we can, we can go into more detail here, but I think the, there's just an interesting paradox of China where, um, the reality is it is by far the world's largest emitter.
Um, it does burn a lot of coal. It does still build new coal plants. So on the one side, it looks like this kind of climate villain, if you want to frame it that way. But on the other side. You could argue that it's one of the countries or the country that's actually taking clean energy deployment and decarbonization, uh, the most seriously.
So domestically, the rate by which it's deploying solar, wind, electric cars. So last year more than half of new cars sold in China were electric. You know, that's way ahead of many countries in Europe, way, way ahead of the us. So it's, it is moving really quickly domestically, but is also really seeing the energy transition and clean energy as this kind of, uh, I guess new economic transformation for, for its economy.
So they're, they're really leaning to the manufacturing of the minerals. We'll need the solar panels, the batteries, to also export to other parts of the world. So there's this very, very interesting dynamic in China where it's this paradox where, uh, on the one hand it looks like a climate villain, but in the other maybe looks a bit like a climate savior.
Ben: We might as well touch on China as you've raised it up. I, I think that's a really interesting framework and they do seem to be committed. They have targets and they're doing things. My two kind of little interesting factoids is, although they are building new coal, they have stopped funding, uh, new coal outside of China.
So they used to be one of the largest funders of that. And that's, uh, gone away and actually regular, uh, finances don't really wanna finance that all, so that's disappearing. And then I was just looking up, I think in the first six months of this year, so 2025, they built over 200 gigawatts of, um, clean power.
And that's more or less, I think if you translate to that's 200 million households. So it's kind of a small country that, that they've powered. And it's about the same amount that the US wants to build in the next five years. Um. On the other hand that is actually just enough to offset the growth in energy that they need.
So they're doing it, but it's only just, uh, it's just bending, which is this, uh, push and take that you have with China. But I do think, the question I always ask myself is, at the end of the day, do we really think that China's gonna be part of the problem or part of the solution? And I think in the round you are tilting it to being part of the solution and you need to try and nudge it even further along that path.
Hannah: I think there are a couple of like interesting points again to elaborate on China. So yes, China's building new coal plants. What's interesting and people under appreciate is that coal plants. Are running less often. Right. So the reality is I actually don't, just don't care how many coal plants China builds.
I just care how much coal it burns. Um, and the reality is that even though it's building new coal plants, those are running less often. So you can have the scenario where it still is adding new coal capacity, but actually it's burning less coal and nicotine less CO2. And as you said, part of the challenge here is that.
China's electricity demand is growing so rapidly, even though it's building huge amounts of clean power as just about making up that entire growth. Um, so over the last few years there's been this kind of, it's always kind of just been on the edge where solar and wind deployment are just about enough to cover electricity demand, but not quite.
So that's why coal has increased still. But as you see in the last year, in particular, in the last six months, um, actually that has outpaced electricity demand. So there are estimates that that China's CO2 emissions have actually fallen from, from power in the first six months of this year. Um, and, and I think, I think in terms of a, a really key, I think, I think often it's useful to have a kind of pivotal.
You know, point, milestone, point at some point. And I think that will be, you know, global, a global peak in CO2 emissions where we can say, this is peaked, let's now get emissions down. And what's absolutely crucial to that is China's emissions peaking, right? Basically when China peaks, the world will peak, right?
Um, and it's very hard to predict peaks, but I think people are now starting to get a little bit cautiously excited that we could be on the brink of this, this peak in, in, in emissions.
Ben: Yes. So part of my job is forecasting, and I would say that within five to 10 years, my probability of peak is very high.
Maybe not one, two, and I can't name you the exact year, but if you say five to 10, uh, it, it does very much look like, uh, we are gonna peak and, and potentially, uh, sooner. Um, I was trying very hard in the book to find a question that I'm asked a little bit, uh, which you don't address, and it was really hard.
So those both 50 are really good. But one, which doesn't appear in the book, maybe it's slightly sociopolitical in some regard is about whether our decision to have children should be influenced by our thinking on climate. And I think to some extent this is actually mostly an accounting quirk or static models that people don't quite understand.
But I also have a kind of pragmatic technologist answer. That's what I call it, about how that humans are the ones which will need to create the systems and technological change. So we really shouldn't be, uh, worried about that. Um, but I was wondering what do you think of this question and human flourishing and, and whether it should, uh, whether decision to have families or not should be influenced by any of our thinking on climate?
Hannah: Yeah, so I think there are often two reasons that people bring up if they are concerned about having children, uh, as a result of climate change. And one is like an input and one is an output. So one of the key concerns is that by bringing another human into the world, they will increase environmental pressure.
They will use energy, they will. Uh, consume fossil fuels and they will just increase amount of CO2 emissions and, and the, and the challenge with climate, um, and, and this often leads to the notion that, you know, actually the root of the problem here is population growth. And if we could dramatically reduce population growth and that would lead to individual decisions to have fewer children, then we would be on a much, much better path going forward than where we are.
And I think the reality is, when you break down the numbers on this, any demographic changes we make today will have almost no impact on emissions and global temperatures going into the future. And the reason for that is if you change fertility rates today, there is often. Quite a significant lag before that actually has a meaningful impact on total population numbers.
Right. Um, and and the reality there is that by the time we've reached a stage where it has a significant impact on population numbers, emissions will be extremely low, or emissions per person will be extremely low, right? So let's say we change fertility patterns. Fertility patterns today, it takes by 2050, for example, or 2060 for that to have a meaningful impact on the total size of the global population.
And the reality is that by 2050 or 2060, um, emissions per person should be extremely low, if not close to zero. Right? And if we're not there, then we will have failed quite badly on our decarbonization. So at the point by which. Population could have any meaningful impact on emissions. Uh, total emissions and per capita emissions should actually be very, very low.
So, and, and the, and, and I actually covered this on a post on my substack looking at, uh, there was an interesting paper that came out trying to model this and, and I think the, the, the end result was that, you know, a change in many billions of people in total population, um, by the, by 21 hundreds would have a, I think it was 0.1%, oh, sorry, 0.1 degree, uh, change in global temperature.
And that was for, you know, having billions of people difference in the total population. So I think we're actually past the point by which. Uh, demographic changes are gonna have a, a meaningful impact. And that also goes in the opposite direction, right? I think there are projections that global population peak might not be that far away, right?
Mm-hmm. The timeline keeps coming forward and forward, and I think some people see that as a kind of, again, a kind of climate blessing that if, um, population peaks way earlier than we thought, then, you know, we'll be able to drive down emissions much more quickly. And again, I think that's not right. I think any other direction, I don't think at this stage population is gonna have a huge impact on, on emissions.
Ben: Yes. And it's a really interesting observation that our consensus models for that comes in and in and in. And I think I also point that to one of the issues, or, or just one of the challenges, the fact that we are, we are using models and models aren't necessarily the world, and you've gotta take a lot of these things into account.
But I'm, I'm very much with you on, on the population front. On, on the flip side of that, in the last year, one of the most talked about ideas, I guess particularly coming out from the US but is going around globally, is this idea around abundance. So, Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson have been talking about it, but it's been floating around for a little bit.
Um, they kind of really talk about the abundance of everything really. But for sustainability, in particularly in particular, they talk about the abundance of clean and green energy and electrification. What do you think about the ideas of abundance? And I guess on the one hand some critics would say, uh, this is too, uh, techno optimist.
Um, that would be one sort of criticism. On the other hand, people might point out to say, well, actually this is a way that you can kind of raise everyone and get a kind of consensus coalition for the things that we need to do.
Hannah: I think there's a, a question of whether I think that's a positive and something we should aim for.
And then there's a political angle of, um, you know, is that the type of, I guess, messaging and narrative and goal that is most politically salient if we want to tackle environmental problems and climate change. And I think my answer to both is, yes, we are. I think if you are to. Look at the political situation today in terms of how people think about climate change, how leaders talk about climate change, um, how people, what people's concerns are about the climate solutions.
And I come to I go through many of them in the book. I think the reality is that for a lot of people, the sense that in order to tackle environmental problems, what we need to do is, um, cut back. We need to reduce our standards of living. We need to go back to a way of living that we had in the past.
'cause that's when we were sustainable and now we're unsustainable. I think the reality is that to most people, that's just not that appealing, right? I think the reality for most people is they want to live a good life. They want cheap energy, and you generally get cheap stuff when you have abundant stuff, right?
That the, those tend to go, go hand in hand. And, and they are, uh, looking for credible alternatives to many of the technologies and stuff that they. They use today rather than just saying, let's just cut that out completely. Um, and I think the way you do get there is by emphasizing the, not just the climate benefits of this transition, but importantly the economic, the lifestyle, um, uh, and, and, and knock on benefits that that, that this transition has.
And I think the reality, I think when you're often talking about, you know, energy, I think what a lot of people miss is how much we can increase energy services to people while also reducing energy use. At the same time, I think people conflate these two, and I think that's a mistake to conflate these two.
So I think the reality is when you blow up what the global energy system looks like, most of it is just wasted energy, right? And that's wasted in two ways, right? When we burn stuff. We just chuck away a load of energy away, right? So when you burn coal, only a third of it actually gets converted into electricity.
For gas, it's maybe half, right? So you have huge losses in that part of the system, but then you have huge losses and basically in using fuels rather than electricity, right? So for your petrol car, 80% of the petrol you put in your car. Is actually what we'd say is wasted, right? Because it's actually not delivering energy services.
Only 20% is delivering the energy services, which is moving you from A to B, right? With electrification, you get rid of huge amounts of those energy losses. So for an electric car, it's basically the inverse where 80% is going from moving you to A to B, and only 20% is wasted. So when you blow it, when you blow this up and then look at the models for the the energy transition, what you realize is that we could get rid of huge amounts of that energy at the top of the chain, which is not doing anything for us or proving our lives in any way.
And you could keep the energy services the same or actually increase the energy services while still reducing that bit at at the top. So I think that's one one key thing to get across is that, you know, trying to provide more abundant energy services does not necessarily mean you need to use more energy.
You can actually use less energy and get more output.
Ben: Exactly. Um, and this touches on, I mean, we spoke about this in our last podcast, so we won't rehash it. So if anyone can go this about that, um, this is one of the, uh, critical things you pick up in kind of degrowth ideas that actually by focusing too much on that you miss all of these things.
And I, I would assume you still have the same, uh, critiques around, uh, the ideas that they had, that you had last year into this year.
Hannah: Yeah, I mean, I think it's actually just got stronger based on the political situation where I think there is. May, I don't, I actually don't think this is necessarily reflected in public opinion, but at least in kind of political rhetoric.
Um, I think there, there, over the last year or so, there has been a shift to what, less away from climate change to either not talking about it whatsoever or talking about climate action in a more negative framing. Right. And I think that's true of many countries. It's obviously true of the us you even see it in the UK and many other countries in Europe.
And I think the, the notion that, you know, the way we should try to progress and push climate action more is therefore to say, well, we should just shrink the economy or, uh, um, even just reduce energy consumption. Like even if you just put that message, we should just reduce and do less, um, in order to tackle climate change.
I think there's just politically, it's just a non-starter, even more so than, than when we discussed this last time, uh, last year.
Ben: Yes, I would've probably said, uh, a few years ago, I was 99% sure of that. Uh, position for forecast is really never like saying 0% or a hundred percent, but it even in increased.
And the thing which switched me was actually, uh, the pandemic because essentially we did have a version of Degrowth during that time and everyone found it really awful. So, uh, I just don't think, well, and emissions just dropped (only) five or 7% or something?
Ben: Some something tiny, right? not of the scale required.
Hannah: I mean, I think one, when there's been discussions on Degrowth previously, I think, um, there's a criticism that, uh, actually not what de growers are not advocating for is reduction in GDP or necessarily like economic growth. Uh, it's aimed at particular sectors and in particular reducing energy, right? So shrinking energy and resource consumption.
And I think my response to that is that, you know. Trying to be, I guess, pragmatic about it. The, the easiest way or the, what I see as the most effective way, if you want to actually just reduce energy, again, that energy at the top of the chain is just to promote decarbonization and electrification. To me, that seems a much more effective route to reducing energy use than to tell people that they should cut back on energy use.
I think the last one, you might get marginal gains from that. I don't think they're gonna be dramatic or across whole populations, just decarbonizing and electrifying, uh, gets you much, much further, and, and to me just seems much more politically feasible.
Ben: Yeah. Much, much better tool. Exactly. Um, okay, so before we tackle, um, a handful of questions from the book where I ask some people about which are the ones that, that come up, um, I thought we could do a, a kind of past and future, um, exercise slightly.
Um, although I guess this one's also a little bit answering the climate anxiety question, but if you could speak to your 16-year-old self, um, I guess the Hannah who loved, uh, science but was worried about the planet's future, uh, seemed to really love water. Um, what would you say to her now about hope via finding your voice, what to do about climate anxiety?
Hannah: Um, I think I'd tell her first, I would tell her to, I guess go wait and look at some of the trends in. Human's ability to solve other problems. Like I think the, my, one of my issues at the time, I was very concerned about the environment, environmental, uh, change and I think quite rightly, um, but the issues that I conflated that also with human development challenges.
So the environment stuff was getting worse, but also all of the human development challenges were getting way worse. And we were kind of living in the worst times on almost any dimension. And the reality is, if you look at the data, especially on human development measures like health, child mortality, poverty, hunger, et cetera, over long time scales, you know, we've, we've made huge amounts of progress on that, right?
So humans are capable of solving problems when we put our minds and, and resources behind it. So that's one, one thing. And I think on the kind of emotional side, I think I would try to get across that a balance of. Concern and hope is good and fine. Um, I think often we are told to push in either just one or the other direction or that's the way, at least the way it's framed.
So now I'm relatively optimistic and you could call me hopeful in some sense. Um, but I think people then conflate that as me being unconcerned in some way or not taking the problem seriously. And I think the reality is you can actually, being hopeful and optimistic about our ability to solve challenges has a prerequisite that you have to believe in the challenge in the first place, right?
You have to acknowledge there's a problem or an issue or to solve, but then also, uh, have some sense of optimism and hope that there are things that we can do to tackle it. And I think at the time I was only in the, the fear anxiety, uh, there's no way we can get out of this box. And I would try to, to instill that, that bit of optimism, that there are things that we can do.
Ben: And let's take Hopeful Hannah and put her into the future. And now hopeful Hannah is maybe 70 or 80 years old in that is likely to be 90, uh, 90 to a hundred years with the kind of life expectancy cohorts that we're looking at now. Uh, what do you think Future Hannah, future Hopeful Hannah, say write, write back in a postcard to us today?
Hannah: Oh, that's a very good question. That's one of those kind of end of history illusion questions, right? Where, when maybe not quite, I think people assume that they're, they're growth trajectory is finished and I'll be the same when I'm 90 as I am now, and that's obviously wrong.
I would, I can tell you what I'd hope we would write. Yeah. I hope what I would write back to my. Current self is, is, is trying to instill how much awe and wonder is to come. Um, I think, I think a lot of people, if you ask them now, have very much lost any sense of, I guess, excitement about the future that lies ahead, right?
Like it's either things are gonna go backwards and we're gonna regress, or we're just gonna kind of trundle along and muddle through. And it seems like there's very little to be excited about over the, in the coming decades. And I, and I don't believe that to be true. I think there's lots that we can be excited about, whether it's technological change in energy, whether it's innovations in health, which we just discussed off the podcast, uh, prior to this.
I think there are huge amounts that we. I, I would like us to be excited about and hope that we make huge amounts of progress on. So I guess when I'm 90, I hope that we write back to ourselves and I write back to my current self and say, you were right to be excited, but actually you should have been more excited.
'cause what's happened in the next, uh, 50 years has just been absolutely incredible.
Ben: Yeah. That's a, that's a really good, um, a really good way of thinking about it. I was thinking about this question as well, and, um, I have a similar, similar view. I, I guess I do a little bit unfortunately about thinking about risks and opportunities this life to too much.
And a lot of people worry about what I would call these left ha risks, so something really bad happening. Mm-hmm. Which is possible, but quite small. But I don't think they think enough about the equal and opposite. Well, I think equal and opposite and potentially bigger and larger, I'm gonna call them Right.
Tail risks. And my example for this is actually in, in both AI and obesity, whereas if you went back 20 years ago. You ask people about the state of where we're probably talking about peak obesity and you describe what some of these AI things are doing today, they would've said, well, that's kind of fantasy and actually we have it today.
And that's actually even 10 years ago you would've said this. So when you, when you go forward, you're gonna have all of these positive surprises that we don't know. Yes, you are gonna have probably some negative ones as well. Um, but like you say, the awe and wonder of some of those positive ones, um, at least hopeful, Ben, uh, is very much hoping that I'd be writing back to talk about that.
So I was gonna ask, um, from some of the questions, um, which comes up in the book. So I sort of took a small sample and said, oh, what are the questions, uh, which you are, you are kind of asking, and one which came up, which was essentially, can we transition fast enough? So what's your thoughts on that? Um, I guess you answer it in the book, but I dunno if it's been updated and, and what would you say to that question?
Hannah: Yeah. So I think, um, it's maybe worth thinking about what enough means, right? Like everyone, like it's a very subjective term and everyone will have their own definition of what enough means for some people. Um, actually the answer to that is just no, because enough for them was steam below one and a half degrees, and we're obviously not doing that fast enough to, to achieve that.
So I think that it's, it's a somewhat subjective question. I guess my, part of my opinion on it is, you know, could, can we potentially transition quickly enough probably for around two degrees, right? So for me now, two degrees is the kind of. Ambitious, but potentially achievable target. And that's kind of what my enough is kind of measured against.
And I think the, the, the, the, the framing in the background here is that, you know, we do need to undergo these huge, or actually several huge energy transitions, well that's moving away from fossil fuels and electricity, but also the kind of electric electrification transition in industrial transition. So a huge range of different transitions.
Um, and the framing here and argument put forward is always that, uh, historically, if you look at the long run data, you know. Well, some argue that there's actually never been an energy transition. 'cause any fuel or energy source that we've used in the past, someone in the world today is still using it, right?
So, uh, we've not even passed, uh, the transition away from wood because some people in the world, that's their main source of energy is wood, right? So that's the first argument. But the second argument is that even if you do look at, um, uh, energy transitions in different regions, you know, it takes 70 years to transition from coal to gas, or it takes, uh, another 50 years to transition from, um, gas to oil.
So these tend to take, you know, half a century or more in the relative. We don't have that amount of time. And I think the, like even there is, if you look at the speed of the rollout of. Clean tech today is much, much faster than the rollout of any of the, any of the fuels or technologies that came before it.
Um, so solar in particular is, is, is, is accelerating extremely quickly. Uh, wind is in second. Nuclear is now not growing very slowly, but it did in the, uh, kind of sixties and seventies. It was growing extremely quickly, and then you got coal and gas, which were rolled out much more, more slowly. I think the key point there is that we, as part of these transitions, what we are doing is we're transitioning from.
Our energy source being commodities. So coal and gas or oil is stuff you dig out the ground that has some sense of fixed economics behind it. It has some sense of fixed, um, speed behind it, and we're transitioning to basically. Uh, from commodities to technologies and technologies follow learning curves, they can follow much more exponential rates, um, of growth, both in terms of drops in prices, but also the speed by which you can can roll these out.
They're much more modular, right? So you can deploy them much more quickly in many different places rather than waiting for this, you know, one coal plant or one nuclear plant in a given location. So I think we, I don't think it's appropriate to necessarily use the models of transitions in the past to therefore say, because it took 70 years, um, to transition from one fossil fuel to another.
That means it's gonna take another 70 years to go from fossil fuels to, to clean tech. I don't think that's an appropriate, uh, extrapolation to make.
Ben: Yeah, I think that's really clear. And I think you also make the point that, you know, again, depending on what you think is, is enough, it's still that every point, 1.2 counts over, over that, you know?
Yeah. It lowers your risk. Uh, and for all of those type of things, there was, there was also a set of questions in the book, which essentially, um, was around resources and, um, sort of, um, the technical capacity of, of things. Um, I'll put them together. And so one was what happens when the wind doesn't blow? Is there even enough land for the wind turbines?
And what happens if we run out of, uh, resources like minerals or things to build the wind? Is, isn't that a huge, um, challenge for us?
Hannah: Yeah. So the, the first one that comes up is, well, it's fantastic to move to solar and wind, but like sometimes it's night and sometimes the wind doesn't blow. And what you're gonna do when that happens and.
I think what's key to get across here is the different options we have at different timescales, right? So we actually have now very good technology, IE batteries, just standard lithium ion batteries, um, to basically store energy and dispatch it over the timeframe of maybe errors, right? And the reality is actually when you look at models across the world, many countries, especially those closer to the equator, can actually get extremely far if you just do a pairing of solar, wind, and batteries.
And there's much less variability across the year. And also there's a, there's relatively abundance on such that, uh, that combination can get you extremely far right. That is much trickier in a country like the UK for example, where we have less abundance on, and we do have quite abundant wind resources, but we have what's called.
The Duncan float, um, which is basically these much longer timescales where, uh, the amount of wind produced can be extremely low, right? So there you could be talking about days to weeks with very little wind. And the question is, what do you do to fill in the gap there? And there are a range of different options for this longer term, um, kind of intermittency or variability problem.
One is just to fill in the gap with other low carbon technologies, right? You can fill the gap with nuclear or geothermal, um, biomass that has mixed reactions, but there are other low carbon fuels by which you could fill that, that gap and build in more diverse electricity mix. Um, there is the, the opportunity for long range transmission, right?
So, uh, even if it's not windy or sunny where you are. There is somewhere else where it is windy and sunny, right? So, um, there is this possibility, especially across the US like large countries, you know, even, uh, domestically can, uh, dramatically increase internal transmission and, and trade of electricity.
But even across Europe, like I think there's lots of scope for Europe to do a much better job of managing this load across the entire country rather than every single country building an energy system purely for themselves. There you, in that scenario, you massively overbuild, right? So you build, if the UK was to, or any country was to only build energy supplies to power itself and it couldn't trade with anyone else, you would build more wind and more solar and other, uh, resources than you actually need, right?
So that's one option. There are other forms of heat storage. Um, uh, um. So thermal storage, for example. Um, there's storage in bricks. There's lots of different longer term storage options. And then there's options like hydrogen, um, which is a relatively expensive option relative to batteries, for example.
But for these longer timeframes would be necessarily that you just cannot build enough batteries to cover this. So my, my, my main point is that there are a range of different options to manage this variability. And I think the reality is, again, is that most countries can get pretty high rates of penetration, of renewables, 80% or more.
And then there's the question of how do you fill in the final 10% or 20%? And I think the, the, the not knowing exactly how we're gonna do that shouldn't stop us from getting to 80% now. And, and I have a lot of confidence that we will solve that final 10% or, or 20%, um, in the future.
Ben: Yes. 80% extremely plausible.
And the last 10 or 20%, um, pretty likely. And you have also a sort of set of questions around the hard to abate sectors. So, uh, cement, I guess you could put aluminum fertilizer, maybe long distance flying. Um, you know, and what are we going to do about that? Isn't that too large a residual? And how much of a problem is that?
Hannah: I'm gonna come back to the, I'm gonna come back to the resource one 'cause I didn't properly
Ben: Sure, yes. On the minerals, the resources. I guess that's also, yeah. Are we gonna run outta minerals? Well, we can do that either, either way.
Hannah: Yeah. 'cause as a question I get a lot, like, are we gonna run out of minerals and, you know, aren't we just substituting one problem for another because we need to do huge amounts of mining for clean energy.
And I think on the first question, are we going to run out in the long term? Almost every, like long-term analyst says no. Right. So whether it's the i a or the Bloomberg or like a range of, of, of, of analytic organizations that say basically, no. And there are a couple of reasons for this. One, we can model basically how much of these different minerals we're going to need under a range of different decarbonization scenarios.
And for some, it's already very clear that if you look at how much we have and how much we'll need. We have enough, right? For, for, for many of these minerals. And then there are, there are a couple of other things that play into that dynamic, which makes me, uh, not that concerned that in the long term we're gonna run out.
And one is that, uh, we are extremely good at finding new stuff when we are motivated to find new stuff. Right. And this has been part of our, I guess our, our, um, you could call it our course or our benefit of fossil fuels, where we just continue to find more of them. So every time there were lots of projections about peak oil and then we just found more oil.
And I think that's the case for many different minerals, whether it's lithium or cobalt or any of of them, I think we will. Continue to find new resources. Um, there's another dimension to this is that we get more efficient at using these resources for these technologies, right? So a solar panel today does not contain the same amount of silver or silicon that it did 10 years ago.
It uses much, much less. So we become much more efficient. It uses these materials and then if you look through history, when there have been, I guess, resource constraints, we've been actually very effective at substituting one for another. Right. So you, you could see some plausible scenario where cobalt constraint, uh, resources are very constrained for batteries, but that obviously will result in a price increase in that.
And then there's the motivation to switch to alternatives and naturally have an alternative in its, uh, it's either cobalt free, uh, chemistry of lithium ion batteries, so nickel, uh, nickel, uh, or, uh, sodium ion batteries, which is another potential solution. So we are, we're very good actually being quite innovative in shifting to alternatives when, when supplies are constrained.
And then finally there's a question of, you know, won't this put huge amounts of pressure on mining and, and environmental pressures? And I think the reality there is that. Yes, we will need to mine quite a lot of new, uh, minerals for these technologies. But when you compare it to the energy system we have today where we're extracting and burning fossil fuels, uh, we will need far, far, far less minerals, uh, for the energy transition.
So to give some perspective on this, the amount of minerals we'll need across the entire energy transition over decades is something like hundreds of millions of tons in total. Right? Compare that to the fact that we extract 15 billion tons of fossil fuels every single year, and we'll continue to do that every single year, if not more, if we continue with a fossil fuel based system.
So, you know, we're actually talking about orders of magnitude less mounting by transitioning to clean energy than sticking with the, the status quo.
Ben: Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. Um, and so that's actually probably quite a good segue into the, into the hard to abate sectors as well.
Hannah: What was, sorry, what was the specific question?
Well, so
Ben: I guess the set of questions is, oh, what are we gonna do about the heart to bait sectors like cement, aluminum, fertilizer and the like. Um, you know, we can't seem to do anything about it. Is it going to be too large of a, of a problem? Um, and I guess adjacent to that is like, all feel really uncomfortable about carbon sequestration.
We don't have this technology coming out and you, you have a kind of cluster of questions around, um, the, the ones you get around hard to abate sectors.
Hannah: Yeah. So I think, um, I think. When people think about hard to abate, they're often thinking impossible to abate, right? So they're often thinking there's just absolutely no way that we're gonna be able to tackle cement or steal or aviation.
And I think increasingly, especially in the last decade, I think it's moved from being a possible impossible to abate, to actually being like quite hard to abate, or I should frame it expensive to abate, right? Often there is some technical solution there. And actually the block is that it's, it's expensive and, and people won't pay for it.
Um, maybe I can take an example of where, um, I think the solution space has moved. I should make clear there. When you look at the solutions we'll need, there are some that we can do today. We are, we're already doing today at scale, we're doing it rapidly and it's very cost effective. So the decarbonization of electricity, uh.
Electrifying roads, transport, uh, they are solutions that, you know, we know they work and they're becoming increasingly, uh, competitive and they are being deployed at scale. These hard to abate sectors are, are much earlier in the kind of technology readiness level where they're often, uh, have some smaller investment, but it's still in the kind of piloting type stage or innovation type stage.
But if I take the example of cement, right, so the challenge you have with cement, um, is twofold. One, you use, um, coal, uh, energy in the actual manufacturing process. But actually the, the, the, the key challenge there is that in order to make cement, what you do is you take limestone. So calcium carbonate, you basically heat it up, uh, to extremely high temperatures and you get calcium oxide.
And the calcium oxide is basically the stuff you put in cement. But if you have fallen the chemistry, you know. Also at the end of that chain, you get carbon dioxide directly, right? Um, and the reality is there's no way that you can convert limestone to cement without producing the CO2 directly from the process, right?
So the question is how do you get rid of that? And I think the fallback solution often in the past was carbon capture and storage. So what we'll do is we'll just stick a big thing on the end of the plant that will capture the CO2 and we'll like store it underground, the, that works. And we could probably feasibly do that.
Just the reality is that it makes cement more expensive, right? If you add carbon capture storage on the end of anything, it automatically makes it more expensive. So that's been the, the challenge there. But there are like very interesting solutions coming through, which take a different approach entirely.
And um, one of those is basically saying we. Rather than starting with limestone, what we'll do is we'll start with calcium silicate. Um, and calcium silicate comes from basalt, which is an extremely abundant rock or on earthborn. No chance that we're ever gonna run out of that in any way. So we have huge amounts of this, and rather than using coal, we'll basically use this electrolysis process and that way you can convert that calcium silicate into cement without the byproduct of of, of CO2.
Um, and I actually think this is probably the cement solution. That I'm, I now, I now get very excited about cement, which I, I didn't have on my play card a decade ago. Um, but this is probably a solution that I'm most excited about because it takes a different approach entirely. Um, gets rid of the CO2 from both parts of that, right?
You're no longer using fossil fuels to process the energy, and you don't have this, uh, CO2 emitted directly. And to me that looks far more credible to get it to a cost competitive level than it does by using carbon capture and storage. And when you look across the different sectors, other hard to abate sectors.
We are kind of in a similar-ish position where, again, we haven't deployed any of these at scale yet, but there are, um, quite promising solutions coming through a range of different companies working on, you know, different I guess solutions. And it is, for some of them, it's hard to pick a winner at the moment.
Um, but I have quite a lot of confidence that, you know, within the next. A decade or two decades, um, we'll get there and, and, and these solutions will start to scale. And of course people will say, well, that's far too late. You know, we can't wait 10 years to get this. And I think the reality is that we should, or, or, or at least I think we might need to just wait 10 years or so.
And I think that's fine. I think if we make huge amounts of progress on the stuff that's easy to do today is cost effective and cheap to do today while building up these, these other technologies. The reality is that by 2050 or 2060, they'll be in the position where they're at scale and they're drastically reducing emissions.
Ben: That makes a lot of sense. And I like your phrase, hard to abate, but not impossible to abate. So that's a, that's a good one. Um, well that's great. I mean, we're not gonna have time, unfortunately, to go through all 50 questions, but that'd be great. 'cause then listeners can buy the book. Um, but it was interesting you mentioned that cement wasn't really on your bingo card a few years ago and, and now it is.
I would be interested in say, over the last year or two, um, whether you've changed your mind about anything in the sustainability space, either something that you've got, oh, I guess it was a bit like cement. It's like, hmm, don't see anything on the horizon. Oh, now I do. Um, maybe one kind of hopeful, or you could also go one the other way where you just changed your mind and thought, oh, that looked like it was gonna work.
But maybe, maybe now it doesn't. But have you changed your mind about anything in the last year or two?
Hannah: I think the main thing. Is actually less about a specific solution or technology and is more a more conceptual level of um, actually how we frame the climate change challenge or what amount of missions reduction we should be aiming for.
And I think previously I was, uh, very much in the kind of, what you might call it, the net zero crowd, where it's like, what we need to do is we need to get emissions to zero by 2050. Right. And I think the, I think I have swayed slightly away from that. Um, and I think the reason for that is, one, I think net zero is a concept has being quite weaponized in politics and I think it's maybe not a particularly useful term.
Anymore to try to convince people to take, um, climate action. But again, I think a lot of the challenge and the framing of what we need to do to tackle climate change is that when you focus on getting to absolute zero, I think for many people it becomes totally unbelievable that we would be able to do that.
Um, like I was having a conversation with someone about Net Zero. Well, not net Zero. I was, they asked what I did and I tried to explain, I struggled to explain what I did, but I kind of talk, yeah. I did stuff on climate and, and that brought up the conversation of like what they thought about climate. And, and they're not immersed in the space in any way.
They're just, again, a regular person that's mildly concerned about climate change, uh, and doesn't have a particularly strong opinion. But what they were saying about Net Zero is like they're not in favor of net zero because they don't know what we'll do about plastics. Right. But I think if you were to hear from that person, they're not in favor of net zero.
I think immediately in people's mind when they hear that phrase is they think, well, you know, they don't care about climate change, or they're not in favor of clean energy, or they're not in favor of, you know, electrifying transport or any of these solutions. And their answer is that was really not the case for this person.
They were in favor of all of the above, but the reason they weren't in favor of net zero is 'cause they didn't know what know what we would do about plastics, which is like 2% or something. Right? And I think this, this like narrow vision on how we get completely to zero, I think in some, in, in, in some sense, um, blocks people from engaging with the, the, the issue and is maybe a bit of a distraction from the stuff we can really have a go at and dramatically do to, to reduce emissions today.
You know, I think the reality is, um. Again, coming back to honesty, I don't think we'll be at net zero in 2050, but I think we can get to 85% reduction or 90% reduction even if we go quite quickly by by 2050. And you know, if there's five to 10% of emissions left that we're still struggling with and it takes us another decade or two to be able to solve those, I actually think that's fine.
You know, once we get emissions that low, the rate of warming will be so low that we won't be under the huge amounts of pressure we're under at the moment because we have really quite rapid warming because our emissions are the highest they've they've ever been. Like. I think once you get to those relatively low emissions levels, which is like.
The remaining 5% or so, you have more time to work out what you do about plastics or what you do about aviation, which is again, just a few percent of, of the world's emissions. So I think that's been a bit of a shift for me is, uh, being less narrowly focused on how do we completely get to zero and be like, how do, how do we get nine emissions 90% down and then we'll work out the rest.
Ben: Yeah. That would be significantly good. I mean, in, in reading your book, at least in the first part, I thought, I don't think this is a change in your view, but the, the clarity of how you wrote about the interplay between, um, personal change and the system change and how yes, we need the system and so you can do your personal things and they happen and you know, there signals to the system via our consumers and the votes and all of that, but not to essentially get hung up about it.
And I know I varied, sort of simplified that, but I thought the clarity of how you wrote about that, uh, this time round was, was particularly lucid.
Hannah: I think, I mean, I, I frame it in this way and I think it's true that I think they're often two extremes when it comes to these discussions. Like on the one hand you have people that say, you know, this is all about individual behavior change.
And you know, as individuals, if we all do our bit. Then, you know, sum it all up and we all have fixed it. Uh, and I think that's just not realistic. That's not gonna happen. Um, and at the other end of the spectrum, there's this sense that this is purely a systemic problem. And actually, um, it's, it's basically just on fossil fuel companies and some governments to take action.
Um, and, and, and if they do that, then the problem is solved and they bear all the responsibility. And again, I think that extreme is also incorrect. Like I think that's a false dichotomy that is either an individual, uh, change issue or a systemic change issue. I think the reality is the role that governments, companies, investors, et cetera, play, um, is absolutely crucial.
But what they, I think what their role is, is to make sure that there are. Low carbon alternatives available, um, that they are affordable and cost effective for people to, to adopt. And that it's made, you know, easy for people to do that, right? The infrastructure's there, if infrastructure's needed, um, that the, the, um, the grid system is stable so people have, uh, stable clean energy supplies, et cetera.
Um, but the reality is, is that that's not gonna happen. And I don't think we can expect that they're gonna put in all of that effort. If as individuals we're completely unwilling to change, endure a bit like that, of course that's not gonna work. Right? We can't expect, the example I use is on transport, right?
We can't expect governments and companies to, you know, either invest heavily in public transport and make that available or make really good cheap electric cars available and build out a whole uh, charging network so people have access to it. They're not gonna do that and there's absolutely no point in them doing that.
If we are all stubborn and say, no, I would like to stick with my petrol car. And of course I'm not gonna take the bus or the train or move to an electric car. Like very clearly, if individuals are not willing to change, that system just doesn't work. So to me it's just a false dichotomy and both matter.
Ben: Sure. Yeah. That was very clearly expressed. Um. So 50 questions. Uh, fast forward to today. Is there a 51st question that, oh, you couldn't quite fit in, or you're now getting asked and you think like, oh, if I could do the next 50, the 51st one, this would be the one, uh, that I would answer for people.
Hannah: Um, not an additional question, but I think the, there was a question in the book on ai, and I was very honest in the book that in the first draft of the book, there wasn't a question on AI and its energy impacts.
And the reason for that is that, especially when I wrote it, there was basically no data to go on. Right. And I felt like it would, like, there was. Nothing valuable at all that I could possibly add there. So it would just be a blank chapter or just a, a kind of nonsense chapter where I wasn't saying very much over the course of writing it.
I think some of the data solidified a bit so that I could say something about AI that I hope is reasonably useful in, in framing the issue. But I think, I think my, uh, perspective on that, uh, shifts much more quickly than it does for any of the other questions, just because ai, uh, and the discussions on that are moving much more quickly.
So I think I maybe would've written the AI question a bit more differently than I did.
Ben: Yeah. And it, and it continues to change. And I think, I guess it depends on who, who you are asking things, but I think there's a little bit too much focus on AI risk, although I guess it comes in so many different forms.
'cause you've got existential privacy data, resource use and things like that. But certainly, and you've answered this in your substack, um, over time, the resource use is really, we shouldn't worry about it. And then on the flip side, I think this is the, is this the question you flipped to Bill Gates as well?
AI's gonna enable I think a lot of technology things. I was, I was looking at the climate models that Nvidia, um, are helping, there's been this, uh, Google's stuff on protein folding within health. I know that's not directly sustainability, but it was going on to do all of that. And that's really hard to predict as well 'cause it's more of an enabler.
But I, I do think that that could, um, that could really be impactful.
Hannah: Yeah, I think the, I mean, we didn't, even at the time when I was writing the book, have very good estimates for like, everyone's interested in how much energy a chat GBT or Gemini or one of the chatbot queries uses, and we really didn't have very good data at all at that time.
We have imperfect but slightly better data now, and I think my, uh, view on that has, has even more solidified that, you know, especially for individual. AI chat bot use people vastly overestimate how much energy it's using in the environmental impact. You know, it's really, really very tiny. Like even if you are asking chat GBTA hundred questions a day, which most people don't, um, it's still a tiny, tiny fraction over your overall energy footprint and your overall carbon footprint.
And I think to many people, you know, uh, seeing the environmental impact of, uh, asking cha GBTA hundred questions seems incredulous, right? They would think that that's, you know, absolutely horrendous for the environment. Like why on earth would you, how could you possibly ever do that? I think the, the reality when you break down the, the numbers, especially for individual use, it's, it's extremely low.
Ben: Yes. I can't quite remember it, but something like eating a steak is 10 to a hundred times worse or something. Something like that. Yeah. I mean diets, yeah. Whether
Hannah: it's water or carbon footprint diets or, yeah, like huge in comparison.
Ben: Great. Um, maybe turning just to, uh, a couple of more, um, personal adjacent things then.
Are you still getting time to run by the coast? How do you deal with the Scottish weather? You know, is that still part of your routine in terms of writing and and running? And, uh, do you listen to, uh, books or music or, or things to inspire you? So are you still getting time to run and what else inspires you?
Hannah: Yeah, I still run basically every morning. Um, I find it very relaxing. Uh, partly very relaxing. At the same time I find I often half draft things in my head when I'm running. Like I, it helps me kind of clear my thoughts and like sometimes I start thinking about, oh, I'm gonna write this, or, so I think that's, it is like a very sacred time, time for me.
Uh, yeah, we're coming into the like, not so nice weather in Scotland and winter, which makes, I think it's actually the darkness that makes it worse, right? 'cause you're basically going out to run in the dark, which is not that fun. Um, uh, but it's fine. Uh, I do enjoy it and I'll continue doing it throughout winter, even if it's extremely icy.
I keep that up as a regular part of my routine. I'm not really an audio book listener. Um, I. And I hope you all listen to my audiobook, but I tend to find, I find podcasts much easier to engage with and listen to than audiobooks. I don't know, it's, I think it's the back and forward discussion keeps it more dynamic than just hearing someone read something.
I tend to find, I don't really take the information in when. When I'm listening to an audio book, so that's not really an option, but I do listen a lot and inspired a lot by, by podcasts.
Ben: Great. Um, last time we had a mini discussion around, um, essentially kind of charitable giving and, and how to think about that.
Um, and you really influenced me. So, um, I, I have, um, already sort of from many years back tried to give sort of more and kind of aim for sort of 10%, um, post-tax of, of thinking about that. Um, but you made the point that actually giving to global development and healthcare, you know, could be seen as part of the solution and things.
And I had always felt a little bit bad that I'd, I actually, although I do some work within sustainability and, and think the sort that, that more my, uh, giving was weighted that way, that way and always felt a little bit bad that maybe I hadn't done that. So I went to re-look at that. And that made me feel quite good that a lot of the human development stuff that I'd, um, decided to support, um, was quite good.
Um, but I wonder, may, maybe we can frame it the other way around this time is, uh, maybe if we gave you, um, a billion dollars or maybe 10 billion, which actually in the grand scheme of things, it sounds like a lot of money. And it is a lot of money, but it isn't actually an astronomical amount of money. But if you had say, a billion or you, you could go up to 10 billion if you like.
Um, how would you think about directing, uh, that money today?
Hannah: Oh, that's a good question. I mean, yeah, a billion. Or even 10 billion. Sounds like a lot. I, I think on the topic of giving, I mean the reality is what was the us uh, aid budget was something like maybe 60 billion or so. Uh, so like even putting that, and that's been like mostly cut this year.
So yeah, my 1 billion or 10 billion would, would still only be a small debt. Yes. In their moment to be lost. You only get
Ben: to do a project or two. You don't get to save a country. So, yes. Yeah.
Hannah: Um, that's interesting. I think I would. I think people would expect me to say I would invest it in solar panels or something.
I don't think I would do that. 'cause I don't think that's where the highest cost benefit for charitable giving here would be. And a lot of people
Ben: are working on solar panels already.
Hannah: Yeah. I think, uh, yeah, I think again, I mean in on clean energy, every year we invest and now it's over 2 trillion. So again, my 1 billion would be a tiny, tiny fraction of that.
I think again, I would either direct it towards, uh, very, um, high, high ROI health projects. Um, or I think one thing I've become, I guess a bit more. Enthusiastic or convinced by, in the last year or so has actually been just, um, give directly. So giving money rather than saying, you know, I'm gonna spend 1 billion on, uh, high, uh, value seeds or malaria bed nets or tuberculosis, uh, medications.
Actually what I'm gonna do is just give the money directly to people on extremely low incomes. And some of the results, especially in the last year, have been extremely positive. Like, I think what there was maybe a study in Kenya where actually, and I can't remember the amount that was given to particular households, but some, the, the, the drop in child mortality rate was like quite stunning from just giving people money directly.
Um, and the argument there of course is that, you know. People, people in particular situations know far better than you or I, what it is that they need to improve their living standards or, or, or what they need from, from a health perspective. So you should just give them the money and they will make very good decision on how best to, to use that.
So I think, um, I would actually like to see, I know I couldn't save a whole country with this even, uh, a small, low, low income one, but I think I would like to see more projects where actually quite significant amounts of money are given, um, in a particular region of a country or even a, a very small country to see, you know, overall if you just give people money directly, like what are the knock on impacts and are those impacts sustainable?
Um, and I think that you could start to see extremely positive results from that.
Ben: Yeah, and I think I was just looking it up, I think give directly, uh, which GiveWell has, uh, looked at, does that, and, and they do seem to see quite high return on, on investments for that things. Yeah. It, it is interesting some people who, who think about this particularly in philanthropy, uh, you know, look at, um, you know, whether as something is underrated and also how tractable or not it is, those are the terms they use.
And when I've been thinking about it, I've actually get, I get less, um, I'm now less worried about so-called tractability. Like, so how feasible this is because I've now seen so many things, which I would've thought were. Infeasible now happen. And so now I slightly wait is if the people or the organization or whatever seem to have a really committed, passionate idea and it makes some sense and, and then it's still underrated as in it seems to be an underfunded, um, area that people aren't looking at.
Then actually that's maybe a, a plausible, you know, for people really thinking about how to give, uh, way for that. And they shouldn't worry too much about tractability because we are very bad at trying to assess probabilities of some of these, um, technologies and things.
Hannah: Mm-hmm. Great. How would you wait, how would I'm gonna spend on you, how would you spend your.
10 billion,
Ben: how would I spend my 10 billion? So, um, I do think, um, direct giving is quite good. I do think, um, um, a little bit more, uh, long run health interventions, so I'm still a little bit on, I guess people talk about this kind of the, the meta layer of things. But for instance, uh, I don't think we've got a lot of data on, um, you know, how people track over time.
So these are kind of longitudinal studies or there's actually all sorts of things. And the reason for this is that, um, normal companies can't make any money outta this. And governments, because it's a long range thing, can't, don't have anything to show for it, even actually in a four to 10 year cycle. So I do think there's a, there's a lot of more long run research that we could do about what's best for us over time and, and how, and how that's followed.
Um, so that's one. Um, and then a little bit also in, in, in. So that's particularly actually in health. 'cause I think there's some of these long run health interventions, which we've got some quite strong, feasible, um, hypotheses about. We just can't test them. 'cause no one wants to track this even for 10 years.
May maybe not a lifetime. And actually there's also a little couple more on how we do, um, organization. Uh, so this is a little bit odd, but I think it's really intriguing to me that for instance, um, boards, committees are how a lot of the world's decision making is done. And actually we know very little about how to make good decisions.
You know, why is it in the world of sustainability that a lot of the. Sort of technocratic experts, people deep in the weeds actually have quite a lot of consensus on what we should do. Um, but it can't transmit into actual, um, practical action. Um, and it's just not simple. You kind of think, oh, well why can't we do that?
And it that. That seems to me a layer to slightly unpick. So I'd probably do a little bit for that 'cause I don't think it's too expensive. And then this other area, which I think is a bit, um, underserved, I guess comes on this, this idea of, of venture philanthropy. So again, it's this slightly higher risk, normally smaller amounts of money for people who, I guess they come across as these kind of moonshots, um, slightly quirky ideas.
Uh, to borrow phraseology from venture capital vc, that's kind of like a pre-seed or seed. So kind of quite early. But actually when you look at the history of how really great ideas have come about, even even things like AI and things, um, it seems to be overweighted in people who, if you looked at it, you just thought, well, that's a crazy idea that we shouldn't back.
Uh, so if that was what we thought, then actually we, we should probably at the margin be backing maybe 10,000 more of those ideas with just. A million dollars say or right, or a hundred thousand. Because if, if only just one or two of those happens to be really transformational, then you, then you've made a really big ROI, even though actually 9,000 of them, uh, are, are gonna, are going to fail.
Uh, because I, again, I thought about this. People say, Ooh, we are investing in something high risk or government say, or we, we've done this in high risk. Uh, but actually, uh, a lot of them kind of succeed at the end and they have like this written report. So it shows to me that we're not really doing high risk.
'cause high risk would say like 9,000 should have a high failure
Hannah: rate.
Ben: Yeah, you should, you should see a high failure rate if you were really properly doing it. And for all, all sorts of other agency problems. I mean, I don't think government's ever gonna do that. It's like, oh, well we just spent your billion and nothing happened, which is the median scenario.
But you know, there's one thing did happen and it transformed our world. And I, and I feel we're a little bit. We're a little bit light on that. So those are my quirky ways of doing it. But my base layer probably still actually is health, uh, health interventions.
Hannah: I mean the UK government, like quite strongly backs this area program you, you're familiar and that is kind of framed around this, like, we should be going for kind of moonshot big risk things.
I dunno what your perspective is on that.
Ben: Yeah, so I'm, I'm, I'm really, um, positive on Aria. So they talk about things like moonshots and things and they have got a lot of these interesting technologies. Uh, you should. People listening, you should look it up. They've got these program management developers and there's, there's lots of live projects on, um, and it's relatively small amounts of money.
So this is it. There's only hundreds of millions. It's not even in, in, into the billions for very underlooked at um, areas. But they also see that small things, things which are really potentially quite transformational. So I'll just talk about one small thing 'cause it talks, uh, about a lot of sense. Uh, so this is a project which is the, this round is closing in October.
So if you're listening to it later, you're gonna miss out. But they call them innovator circles. And the idea was if you look at the history of innovation, you often had tight, tight knit circles of let's say 80 to 20 people who really, um, encouraged one another in kind of an honest way of saying, this is what we know, this is what we don't know, and this is what where we could potentially do better.
And they did really transformational work, actually, not just in technology. You saw this in humanities as well, so you see it in writing circles and why is it all of these philosophers seem to get together in these small circles? And so they thought, well, maybe there isn't, that doesn't need that much money, but maybe we should try and do that.
And they did a pilot project with, um, with a couple of circles and had really, really great outcomes. People said, we've really pushed our ambition. We've started more projects. It was really great that we had open honesty with what's in the field and what's working. And they're now gonna seed with, with not that much money.
People who want to do other innovator circles in, in technology and, and the like and funding that. And so that's exactly the kind of thing that isn't really getting funded. Anywhere else with this sort of idea, a very plausible, tractable idea, which is already kind of working. Um, and then they have that on, on very many fields.
So, um, yeah, I still really positive it kind of gets a bad press because you kind of think, oh, these are the moonshot ideas. They're spending money thinking about the philosophy of Jira engineering and solar shields. Is that really a good use of our, our money and, and that type of thing. And you do have to think about it and cost benefit, but it is only a small amount.
And if some of these things really hit, they could be very, uh, transformational. So yeah, I'm, I'm generally positive on Aria and the equivalent in the US is, is these DARPA or, or particularly arpa e around, um, energy. And, and I think even Bill Gates's thinking was slightly, um, influenced by thinking around how you, how you do it and how you fund, uh, innovation and, and breakthroughs, uh, for his breakthrough energy and the like.
Yeah, I
Hannah: was gonna say there's breakthrough energy. I mean, his. I think I coming back to the like stuff we know how to do now and do very cheaply, like, I think my, my point there is that, um, that that's where most of the money at the moment should be going. But the reality is for these hard debate sectors and stuff that we were discussing earlier, um, for them to be ready in 2040 or 2050, right?
You need some amount of investment now and it is that early stage kind of seed investment that gets innovators going. So I actually think some of the kind of calciums, so look at cement solutions we're talking about, um. Was initially, uh, funded or backed by Breakthrough Energy, uh, kind of Bill Gates as kind of incubator for energy Solutions.
I think he does a lot of this focus on this kind of hard to abate stuff or stuff that, uh, uh, is, seems less tractable. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Um, but does need some small amount of funding Now if you want it to be at all a reality in 2040 or 2050. But the the point is that you don't need to be investing trillions in it right now.
'cause there's actually nowhere for the trillions to go right now. It needs start. Yeah, exactly.
Ben: It's probably just tens of millions or whatever. I'll tell you my two other left field intractable, not tractable ones, but the, the things in that is I do think. Long distance electric airplanes are more viable than people think.
Half the issue is, is regulatory. And, and yes, you're gonna have a heavy battery and, and fly it. Um, but I do think we could do more to speed up that. I definitely think short shorthaul is, is plausible in early 2030s. I think the regulator actually is gonna be the bottleneck, not the technology, but we need something for long distance.
And I would really love it if we could also get a, um, cellular steak, which isn't a steak. 'cause I think if you, I know they're doing it in chicken and other things, but I think if you crack a ribeye steak for people and they did not know that it was not a ribeye steak, uh, and I know you kind of think, well, well, beef consumption should be down on things.
It's just not gonna happen in America. So what you need to do is give them something, but they didn't know it was a ribeye steak. Uh, and then, and then you would be there. But there are some people working on the food issue. But I, I do think that that may be one area where someone could do it.
Hannah: Agreed.
Ben: Great. Okay. So la last, well maybe last couple of questions. One would be, um, any other current projects that you're working on? Obviously busy, uh, with, um, book tour and speaking, and you have your substack and you have all of the great work that you do in, in world, in, in data. So you probably don't actually have time for much else, but it'd be interesting in, in, in other, other current projects.
And maybe you could also give some thoughts, um, to advice for people who might wanna work in sustainability or even life advice, uh, generally thinking around, uh, you know, what you would, uh, advise for listeners to think about. So current projects and any advice that you have.
Hannah: I'm not sure that would come to me for life advice.
I'll try. Um, no, yeah, I, um, at the moment I'm like always working on a range of things. Um, like obviously the new book is just out, so a lot of my time is, is doing stuff on that. I keep getting asked, am I writing another book? Not, not yet. Like I. I hope I will write another book at some point. I do enjoy the writing process and really going through the process of writing a book really clarifies your thinking on a given topic and challenges it, right?
Like once I. I think that's the case with writing in general, not just writing a book, which also comes through again, I think in my, my substack and stuff when I sit down to kind of take on a question on my substack, I think the process of going through and trying to explain it to someone on paper really clarifies or challenges what you're thinking.
Like I think it's very easy in your head to think, yeah, I understand that, and then. You go to write it down and you realize you don't understand it. So I think, uh, I find that process in general quite rewarding. So I hope at some point I'll write another book, but I, I haven't started yet. Um, I'm, yeah, I have the Substack, which I kind of do in my free time.
Again, it's. I find it fun. I find I learn a lot of stuff and clarify my thinking, doing that. I also have a, a podcast, um, where we solving for climate, where we talk to a range of people like innovators, entrepreneurs, people in policy, um, academics about different parts of the climate challenge and, and, and what they're working on, uh, and what we can do to solve it.
Like the emphasis is not on just talking about climate change, it's solving for climate. So we try to focus on the solution lens of the problem. And then my, my full-time job is at our own data and they are, uh, I work on like a very, very broad range of stuff like. Still quite a lot of climate and environment stuff, but lots on health and foreign aid, um, and, uh, demographics, like very broad.
And I really enjoy that process of being able to explore and engage with a range of, of different topics and, and, and, and work on interests outside of climate and environment. And I think on top of that, I have very little time to do much else. Um, but yeah, I like the having a diversity of things. I think in terms of like advice, I think, um, I think it's.
I think it's easy to then index on your own experience 'cause that's all you can really draw from in a real way. But I, I think based on my own experience, I think one thing that's been really key in a kind of professional level, or like finding my place in the world where I feel like I can have some impact has really been, um, finding that combination of different skills that in some way carve out a niche for yourself or make yourself a little bit unique.
Um, and that kind of niche for me has been this mix of the kind of environmental, scientific background. Um. Enjoying writing. I think the enjoyment of writing is, is a, is a key part of it, but also being okay at writing, um, and, and explaining things to a general audience. And then the kind of data science, data visualization dimension of that.
And often people working in the space will have like one of those, right? So like of there are obviously many, many goods environmental scientists and, and people, um, working on the science. There are often extremely good and beautiful writers and there are people that are fantastic at in depth data analysis or, uh, making beautiful data visualizations.
But what's quite, uh, rare is like trying to somehow combine all those free into a particular kind of career trajectory. And that's kind of where I think I've landed. I don't know if it's been deliberate. I don't actually don't think it's been deliberate. And I think that's another key part of my advice there is that like if I look back.
On my kind of trajectory. I think at no point was it really obvious what the next step would be. I think what's been really key has been, uh, it's often talked about as like trying to, um, increase your surface area of opportunity. Um, where, and a big part of that I think is actually putting yourself out there.
I think a big part of that is, uh, working in public or writing in public or building a public portfolio so people can see your work, they can judge your work, they can engage with your work. And I think, you know, if you do that and, and do that quite well, uh, stuff tends to come at you. And then you have often have like some, uh, capacity to be able to pick what you want to do.
Like that's not for me, but this is for me. And I think that's the kind of bumpy road I've been on in my. Career so far, but it's been enjoyable and I think, um, um, I hope that it's made some impact, I guess.
Ben: Yeah, that sounds great. Uh, try and find out what you like. Don't be shy to share your work in public.
You might find, uh, some good things happen.
Hannah: Yeah, exactly. I think another way of framing it is like, this is often talked about in kind of impact circles or kinda effective, effective altruism, uh, circles, but like trying to find a particular area where you have a very clear, like comparative advantage, right?
So like try to find an area where if you weren't doing that particular role, would someone else be doing it? Right. And I think there's a lot of kind of traditional careers where you can be fantastic in that role, but there are loads of other equally fantastic people doing that. Um, kinda, uh, um, kind of standard role and I guess this comes back to like finding a particular niche.
Often if there's no one, if you don't fill that particular niche, there's no one else that will film that instead. So I think that's another way of, of framing it.
Ben: Yeah, for sure. And you can combine them, at least this is talking from my experience in the sense that, uh, I dunno, many other people who are an investor do podcasting and right place for theater and suddenly each one of those things are not necessarily super unique, but when you put them all together, uh, you turn out to be an an odd shaped thing.
Hannah: I didn't know you did plays for theater!
Ben: So on that note, Hannah, thank you very much.
Hannah: Thank you very much Ben. Really enjoy our chats.
