Emberiffic — Climate Action Could Push the Fossil Industry Over a Cliff in 5 Years
First Take — Ember’s Electrotech Revolution report — Just Don’t Mention the Climate Movement or Justice
Hope From Data Analysis? You bet!
Need hope? In five years the clean v. dirty energy competition will be over, with dirty falling off a cliff. That’s the overall conclusion from an excellent report (or slidedeck) by Ember, a cutting-edge think-tank made up of “energy analysts, data scientists, communicators and team-builders.” There are so many graphs in this slidedeck that are filled with “Emberiffic!” good news. It’s a treasure-trove of hope. Here’s a sampling:
Mission Alignment!
Ember has embraced “an evidence-led and solutions-oriented approach, aiming to secure an energy system that brings benefits to all.”
In other words, for us in the Climate Movement this pro-action think tank is a steadfast ally whose mission correlates with ours — ours being to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.
But Do They Want To Be Seen With Us In Public?
Do they want to be our ally? That I’m not so sure about. They downplay values-based climate action as a driving force. So don’t mention the M-word. For them it’s all about data and markets and telling that story in a compelling and impactful way.
As they put it on their website:
This isn’t just about climate policy anymore – it’s about building energy systems that are resilient, low-cost and high-performance. The clean energy transition has become the intelligent choice, not just the moral one.
As I demonstrate with The Catalytic-4, these are false juxtapositions. Didn’t we always want resilient, low-cost, high-performance energy systems? Didn’t we always want both moral and intelligent choices? I did! I do!
I don’t think they want to talk about the M-word — the moral stuff, what gives our Climate Movement its power, along with our numbers — as a force for societal change.
Maybe they want to create some distance between us, as if the M-word is incompatible or a drag on the Intelligence + Data Analysis => Electrotech Revolution equation.
Let me just say for the record that I’m happy to be both moral and intelligent at the same time, and I’m sure you are too. ;-)
The Emberiffic Electrotech Revolution is Good Climate News
They call what’s happening “The Electrotech Revolution,” which has three basic technological drivers: (1) renewables (2) advances in the storage and delivery of electric energy, and (3) the electrification of economies.
Here’s how they describe it in their report/slidedeck:
The magnetic centre is the electron: we are revolutionising how we generate, use, and connect electrons. Solar and wind are conquering electricity supply. EVs, heat pumps, and AI are electrifying major new uses. Batteries and digitalisation are connecting supply and demand.
Three reinforcing shifts. One energy revolution. The electrotech revolution.
But these tech drivers are themselves being driven by three factors.
At its core, this revolution is driven by physics, economics, and geopolitics. After all, the arc of energy history bends towards solutions that are leaner, cheaper and more secure.
The Climate Movement as a driver? Nah.
Physics (efficiency), economics (ARTC), and geopolitics — sure. These you can pretty much take to the bank.
For our friends at Ember these fundamental drivers are based on the laws of nature, on economic “laws” (or at least stable patterns) that can be turned into equations, and on national interest, which is about as close as you will get to a law in geopolitics, especially for those of the realist school of international affairs.
So the bedrock of their view are laws/patterns that undergird nature and human affairs.
But the Climate Movement as a major driver? Nyet.
Honestly, who can blame them. We are not yet what we need to be: big and broad and active enough, 400 million worldwide by 2030. Nor are the Climate Movement and Climate Action Supporters yet providing 80% public support for needed government action. Indeed, the Climate Movement seems to be in the doldrums these days.
So we are not yet the driving force we need to be to create change at the speed and scale necessary.
I’m guessing that for our friends at Ember the Climate Movement is — unlike the laws/patterns that undergird their view — totally unreliable. We are like vernal pools that burst with life only to shrivel up when the dry season snuffs them out.
“400 million by 2030? Good luck with that.”
We’re unreliable, unbelievable, and unforcastable.
Well, if this is what they really think — and, admittedly, I’m reading tea leaves here — then we’re just going to have to prove them wrong.
Justice? Speed and Scale to Beat the Climate Clock?
While I think they are underestimating the political and structural opposition to what they call the Electrotech Revolution (and such opposition is another reason the Climate Movement is needed), I agree with their overall model: tech change bringing about societal-economic transformation in waves/revolutions.1 It is in keeping with my emphasis on the accelerating rate of technological change (ARTC) as one of the Four Catalytic Sources of Transformation. Indeed, their approach combines my third and fourth catalytic sources — ARTC and Governments-and-Markets — while ignoring the first two — The Climate Movement and Climate Action Supporters.
As their “Oh, by the way” graph (above) at the end of their report suggests, all the world really needs to do is foster their “Electrotech Revolution” and it will take care of climate change as an added bonus.
And justice? It’s not a word they use that I’ve seen. Maybe for them it’s too much of a “moral thing.” “Not my table.” They want their Revolution to benefit all, sure. But as with climate, it appears to me to be just another added bonus, as the screenshot below from their website shows; somehow it becomes a nice byproduct of the Revolution because it passively “create(s) the conditions” for everyone to benefit — trickle-down justice.
Well, I’m not willing to sit back and assume that this new version of the tech-and-markets-will-save-us pitch will happen (1) on its own in time to overcome climate change, and (2) in a just fashion; “trickle-down justice” is a pale skinny cipher at best, a mirage at worst.
In other words, the world won’t achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal without us, without The Climate Movement and Climate Action Supporters pushing ARTC and Government-and-Markets to do so.
But if those of us in the Climate Movement become big and broad and active enough and we all play our parts and create Catalytic-4 Synergies, including strategic ARTC as envisioned in their Electrotech Revolution, then we can overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. So we want the same things — but we want more than these same things.
Thus I’m grateful for Ember’s work. I’ll be using it quite a bit, as there is much “Emberiffic!” hope to share.
But as of now they will never have enough hope to offer us. Because of our love we hope for a just world, and every step towards justice creates hope.
As the Climate Movement we are committed to the three actions of justice: stopping bad stuff, setting wrong right, and making things better. The Electrotech Revolution will contribute somewhat to the first and third as a passive by-product. We’ll take it. But on all our Olympian Fields of Action we must actively push on towards the fullness of justice, the fullness of freedom. Love, the L-word, our most supreme value, is not content with trickle-down justice.
Yes, we have mission alignment with our friends at Ember, but not completely. Join us in striving in love for the fullness of justice and freedom and making our future come faster!
If you are new here, check out our Intro Series. If you like this post, please “like,” comment, and share. And thanks for all you’re doing.
They reference the work of Carlota Perez, who comes out of the Kondratiev/Shumpeter/Freeman evolutionary economics approach. A helpful introduction is Chris Freeman and Francisco Louca, As Time Goes By: From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution (Oxford: 2001). Freeman was the professor of both Perez and Louca. (You can skip the first chapter on “Cliometrics.” Ugh.)