Tech will be key to tackling climate change

Addressing climate change requires liaison between governments and private investors

French foreign minister and president of the COP21 Laurent Fabius, center, applauds while United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon, left, and French president Francois Hiollande applaud after the Show more

The adoption of the historic Paris Agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions by 196 countries on Saturday after years of negotiations heralds progress in the global efforts to tackle the most drastic effects of climate change.

Research shows that global energy demands are growing. Energy use is set to increase by one-third by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency, driven primarily by India, China, Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia. Among the big questions which abound in global energy in 2015 is what do new climate pledges, such as the Paris Agreement, mean for the way that the world meets its rising energy needs?

The challenge with such agreements is that signing doesn’t necessarily mean implementation. The Kyoto Protocol, for example, was signed by 192 parties in 1997 and was not successful at bringing about a big breakthrough in policy. Countries varied in the effort they made. For example, governments of developing countries were not able to address the issue because they simply didn’t have the resources to invest in efficient alternatives to traditional energy and they had their own development plans to undertake.

What we can take from this is that perhaps the world shouldn’t only focus on reducing energy use but also on finding new technologies to diversify energy resources. As Bill Gates said when he announced his energy research initiative this week, what we need is “innovation to get to breakthrough solutions”. His initiative draws on billions of dollars from 28 private investors, ranging from billionaire individuals to universities, to try to develop businesses from ideas generated by government basic research.

On the one hand, the Paris Agreement includes working on strengthening the technology mechanism to support the implementation of the agreement through focusing on research, development and demonstration to develop and enhance endogenous capacities and technologies. On the other hand, private initiatives like Mr Gates’, as he said, will help to boost research and development that governments around the world conduct, since they can help to speed up the commercialisation of the process and address the sense of urgency.

Mr Gates said that 20 governments – including the US, China and India – have committed to double their energy research budgets as part of his initiative. This cooperation, could help show us the light at the end of the tunnel.