The opportunities and limits of tech in addressing climate change

Dr. Paul Behrans is the assistant professor of Energy and Environmental Change at the institute of environmental sciences at Leiden University. In this interview he discusses the opportunities and limits of tech in addressing climate change.

I spoke with Paul about his background, career, and current projects, including his book: “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science”.

My book comes out a month from today! I hope it can be of use to you ??THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES uses Pessimism/Hope chapters to show the unconscionable path we're on + the immense hope we can enact by tackling our environmental crises, which are everything problems. pic.twitter.com/QCJOcqiMNI

— Paul Behrens (@DrPaulBehrens) August 17, 2020

Commencing with his past, Paul spoke of his education, and how his studies mainly revolved around physics:

“I started my studies in physics, astronomy, and meteorology. Although I loved working on telescopes, at some point I felt I should come back down to Earth to find ways to contribute to the energy transition.

My Ph.D. in atmospheric physics focused on locating wind turbines in complex landscapes. After my Ph.D., I did some policy work for the government and became fascinated (if a bit daunted) by the complex connections between society and nature.

Those interconnections made their way into my research, as it moved into a field called ‘Industrial Ecology’, which is what I’m focused on today.

I work on connecting the impacts of human consumption on the environment using global economic models”.

He spoke of how his past choices have positively affected his work today, enabling him to broaden his mind to environmental and social issues:

“I think we always try to post-rationalise our choices! It’s never a clear journey from point A to B, life is too complex and capricious for that.

But in my case, having worked in academia, industry, and policy has been useful in building a broader picture of our environmental and social problems.

It also gives you a sense of the complexity of change. While many of us want to change things for the better we are limited by the situations and institutions – business, government, education – that we find ourselves in.

This is the definition of systems change and why it is so difficult – yet we know we need to change almost all human systems in deep ways”.

Paul Behrans: Biggest successes

We moved on to speak of the last year and what he believes were his biggest successes.

“The last 12 months have been difficult for everyone. Perhaps the big wins right now are the simple things in life: that my family and friends are all well and most of them haven’t been sick, and that I am lucky to be able to work and teach from home.

Before the pandemic, the big win was finishing this book! It took a lot out of me, and it was a struggle to engage with the enormity of the problems we are facing.

I felt a lot of responsibility to science, and to the reader. I hope to have written something accessible and factual, but that’s a lot harder to pull off than it might sound! Writing the book was both the hardest and best thing I’ve ever done.

It was the worst of times, and the best,  because it felt like something I had to do, as a sort of act of climate/future advocacy”.

In terms of what he would have done differently, Paul spoke of how the pandemic made him regret not dedicating more time to his personal life:

“Had I known the pandemic was coming, I’d have spent more time with friends and family through the winter! It’s a lesson for me when the pandemic eases and perhaps a lot of people are feeling that way now.

It would be an important environmental development to spend more time with friends too, as it’s generally a low-impact activity”.

We moved onto the present, where Paul spoke of his most recent objectives and projects:

“Other than thinking about the ways I can support the book (no mean feat!), my colleagues and I are working on integrating food and energy systems with global economic models.

We are working on how to ‘fit’ an increasingly affluent human population on the planet without exceeding ecological limits. In some cases, it’s clear that technological solutions will be needed, but in others, we will need to see large social changes”.

We discussed the role that technology has to play in the post-COVID-19 landscape:

“Technology is essential but not it won’t be enough, nor it cannot address all our problems. Technology can and is revolutionising many human needs and services, those things that can’t be addressed by social/personal changes.

There is huge hope in the energy transition, and it appears that we have most of the answers we need, even for such a huge system. (We use astonishing amounts of energy, as I describe in the book.) The question is whether or not it will be fast enough.

Technologies can be helpful if we develop and use them with caution, such as artificial intelligence applications for monitoring emissions, optimising supply chains, or increasing food yields.

But we have to be very careful that they don’t entrench existing global inequalities or that they are used to help existing fossil fuel industries remain competitive”.

Paul mentioned the social changes that need to occur in order for this technology to be successful:

“We are already beginning to see how social changes also drive improvements in technology. There are massive changes in the food system underfoot.

As more people move to plant-based diets, we are seeing large-scale market interest and record-setting IPOs for new food businesses offering plant alternatives – such as the Impossible Burger.

The growth of e-bikes is also extremely encouraging. If we can switch large amounts of short-distance travel to bikes, and if we can move public transport away from cars, it would make a big, crucial difference to health and emissions in urban regions. These are just two of many, many examples described in the book”.

I asked Paul about whether or not we can be optimistic about the changes we need to make in order to help our planet transition to a more sustainable way of living:

“We can be simultaneously hopeful (rather than optimistic, as hope implies action) about the changes to come and deeply alarmed by the speed at which our natural systems are collapsing.

I actually have very little doubt that we would eventually transition human society to a far more sustainable way of living if we could do it quickly enough to avoid extremely large levels of suffering. I’m far more doubtful about the necessary speed of our actions.

Remember that the outcome for society and the environment is on a scale: we are already seeing suffering around the world due to environmental damage, which will continue to worsen.

But we are still able to avoid even larger, global, and ubiquitous suffering. There is no such thing as it being too late, but every day of delay is to knowingly cause suffering to others, not to mention damage to the planet”.

Before we finished, Paul revealed his greatest inspirations, and who inspired him to achieve success in his career:

“My inspiration comes from a broad number of scientists, journalists, writers whose work I really admire. The work of scientists who look at the world holistically from both social and technological frames were a huge help during the writing of the book.

Academics like David Orr, Donella Meadows, Glen Peters, Thomas Homer Dixon, Will Steffen, Simon Lewis, Mark Maslin and so many more I don’t have space to mention.

Authors who are able to write about science in accessible ways are always an inspiration, writers such as Gaia Vince, Elizabeth Kolbert, Charles C Mann, Ed Yong, and more.

With so much research and news coming out every day the work of journalists at Carbon Brief is invaluable, as is the journalism of David Roberts at Vox, Akshat Raithi at Bloomberg, and many others”.

If you would like to get in touch with Paul, contact him via Twitter: @DrPaulBehrens and on @LinkedIn.

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