What if climate change wasn’t the main reason to switch away from fossil fuels? Professor Michael Molitor theorises that a far more compelling argument is fossil fuels’ inability to continue driving exponential economic growth.
Please note that this seminar will now take place in room G20, Royal School of Mines.
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Abstract
With observed carbon emissions now well above the highest modelled scenarios of just a decade ago, is it possible we are chasing the wrong problem? The UN climate negotiations were launched in 1990 and 25 years of talks have not led to any changes in our emissions trajectory nor, more importantly, the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere. The failure of Copenhagen in 2009 made it clear that the prevailing view is no one wants to invest today in reducing their emissions and have to accept lower economic growth in the future as a result—regardless of how little the future losses may be. Is it possible we are asking the wrong question and using the wrong approach to the wrong problem?
A key question that no one has addressed is: can we, both today and in the future, continue to meet the majority of our energy needs through the combustion of fossil fuels for both transport and stationary energy? Energy is the most fundamental component of a global economy that depends on exponential growth. The overall resource productivity of fossil fuels has been declining for decades and, regardless of the incremental technological improvements that continue to be made, fossil fuels cannot provide a sufficient return on overall investment to drive growth at the levels now required.
Even if you assume that there are no environmental externalities, fossil fuels consume too much capital, energy and natural resources to serve as the energy foundation of growth. Carbon emissions from fossil fuels represent the largest waste stream on the planet and the greatest measure of inefficiency—is it possible to drive exponential economic growth with highly inefficient industrial activities that lie at the core of the global economy?
A more compelling reason to switch rapidly away from fossil fuels is their inability to continue driving exponential economic growth. Governments and major corporations are more interested in driving growth than addressing climate change so now they have a more compelling incentive to do both.
Biography
Michael Molitor is a visiting professor at the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research) in Paris. He is interested in disruptive innovation, improving overall resource productivity and synthetic biology. His current interest is on reforming capital markets to move away from a unique focus on generating risk-adjusted returns—regardless of the underlying implications for generating economic growth at scale. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University, a PhD from Cambridge University, a joint MSc between the London School of Economics and Imperial College and a BA from the University of Michigan. He has held full time academic appointments at the University of California (Berkeley and San Diego), Columbia University, Carleton College and part time positions at Stanford University and SciencesPo. He spent 12 years in the private sector as a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and as a senior advisor at both BP and McKinsey. An Australian citizen, Michael lives in Paris.