Climate Week

TL;DR: “Climate Week NYC” focuses more on public policy than engineering solutions. The only effective path to address climate change is to combine the two, but the “week” doesn’t chart one. Neither direct air capture nor geoengineering (the “how” of climate modification) merits even a single session.

Next week is “Climate Week NYC,” so I would call it a “target-rich environment” for my usual topics. But I’d prefer not to promote a circular firing squad by proxy.

So, let’s examine the ten themes from the week and then analyze them to see if there are practical solutions that only require a single miracle to have an impact. According to the website , they are (in alphabetical order):

• Energy - Accelerating the clean energy transition through global collaboration and policy development.

• Environmental Justice - Amplifying the voices of marginalized communities and centering environmental justice in climate action.

• Finance - Exploring financial opportunities to mitigate climate risks.

• Food - Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from food production and promoting sustainable agriculture and land management.

• Health - Focusing on the impacts of climate change on health outcomes and public health preparedness.

• Heavy Industry - Reducing carbon emissions from major industrial sectors through improved efficiency and a more circular economy.

• Nature - Preserving and restoring Earth’s ecosystems and biodiversity while promoting a deeper connection between humans and nature.

• Policy - Developing effective policies to accelerate climate action and support the transition to a net zero economy.

• Sustainable Living - Encouraging individuals to contribute through individual and collective actions.

• Transportation - Electrifying transportation systems to combat climate change and improve air quality.

These themes are far from mutually exclusive, and most involve a “call to action” of some form. I exclude Policy, Finance, and Sustainable Living because these themes are fundamental levers in all approaches, but none can act independently of technology. Environmental Justice is similarly encumbered.

The remaining six themes fall into two separate classes: Energy, Industry, and Transportation involve the transition to clean energy sources and the reduction of emissions in these sectors, while Health, Food, and Nature focus on the impacts of climate change on human health, food systems, and ecosystems. We know that impacts are real but uncertain, so these themes are also of marginal relevance.

Notably absent from any session whatsoever (and I looked high and low) is the most critical engineering technology: “direct air capture,” which reduces the burden of already-emitted carbon in the atmosphere. Given a claim of about 600 presentations, that’s a pretty blatant oversight, but the stark fact is that including it would make both policy and finance challenging to reconcile. Indeed, there is no mention of “geoengineering”, probably because it’s a protest-worthy topic.

The three classes most relevant to this theme are Energy, Industry, and Transport, so let’s dig deeper. In the Energy theme, there are two sub-categories: sources and efficiency. For sources, there’s the production of “renewable energy” and “decarbonization” of existing energy resources. That could well be a distinction without a difference. From my perspective, there are two ways to access energy: (a) collect it where it is given to us from the environment or (b) extract it from natural resources, primarily carbon for combustion. Nuclear is the only exception, but policy limits, not necessarily technology, overburden that. The only session I found was Roving Reactor , an art exhibit hosting one session on small modular nuclear reactors.

The Industry theme also has two sub-categories: emissions and recycling. For emissions, there are carbon-producing/energy-intensive processes at scale, like cement, aluminum, and steel. For recycling, there is the catchphrase “circular economy” (what I’d call “everything as a service”) and plastic. Each of these topics merits one session, and it turns out the session on aluminum is also on recycling. The only session that covers steel is a catch-all panel discussion subtitled “Inset Credibility before SBTi Guidance”. Harrumph. What about credibility after SBTi guidance? I spent a few recent issues on that already! 1

In the Transportation themes, there are two sub-categories: zero-emission vehicles (like fully electric vehicles that don’t generate emissions during use) and public transportation. I’m not sure how those categories differ, either, other than vehicle occupancy—I may compose an issue analyzing the energy impact of public transportation in the future. Still, I’ve seen enough mostly empty 25-ton city buses on their routes to believe that it may require less energy for urban passengers to drive than to take the bus. If all buses had every seat full, it’s easy to see the advantages, but we know that’s not what happens. So, what is the practical energy impact?

My high-level takeaway from the structural elements of “Climate Week NYC” is that it’s a wannabe COP, a conference of parties that aims to influence public policy rather than solve a genuine engineering problem. The “miracle” connecting these themes is the faith that regional public policy can change global outcomes. The second “miracle” is that we can affect global outcomes without trying different approaches first. And then there’s the mistaken belief that all we have to do is to end our “addiction” to geologic carbon, and everything will be fine, which is a scientifically untenable conclusion.