Climate and Technology: An Interview with Al Gore

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: what made you feel like now was the right time to make the sequel roughly a decade on after an [00:00:08] Speaker 2: inconvenient truth there have been two huge changes in the last decade number one the climate related extreme weather events are far more common far more destructive unfortunately in the last seven years the u.s has had 11 so-called once-in-a-thousand-year events the second big change is that we now have solutions available that were only visible on the horizon a decade ago now the cost of renewable electricity from solar and wind is frequently well below the cost of electricity from fossil fuels and soon that's going to be true everywhere what's the one technology development [00:00:48] Speaker 1: from the last decade that you're the most excited about that you think could have the most impact on [00:00:52] Speaker 2: climate change well i've been most gratified personally by the stunning decreases in the price of electricity from solar photovoltaics it's almost as steep a cost down curve as the computer it's really quite remarkable but if i had to pick one that's racing forward right now it would be batteries because the addition of affordable and hyper-efficient batteries to renewable energy that combination is going to completely transform the world's energy system and when you look at some of [00:01:33] Speaker 1: the emerging technologies on the horizon things like blockchain cloud computing machine learning do you think [00:01:40] Speaker 2: that they have an important role to play in fighting climate change i do blockchain promises to be one of the half one of the half dozen most significant new technology revolutions so we're in a period of and we're in a period of time so we're in a period of time and we're in a period of time intelligence it it can radically change the efficiency and productivity of almost any human [00:02:12] Speaker 1: endeavor so one thing that i know you talk about in both films is the the blue marble image of the planet and that that's been an important image for you and that that's how you start all your slide presentations i wanted to hear you talk a bit more about the importance of having the ability to visualize the planet as well as tools that actually help us visualize the impacts of climate [00:02:33] Speaker 2: change like earth engine yeah well the old saying uh pictures worth a thousand words certainly does apply those first pictures of the earth from space had a transformative impact less than 18 months after the first of those pictures earth rise the first earth day was organized and major environmental legislation was passed not only in the u.s but elsewhere and having regular pictures of the earth and having the ability to make sense of it with earth engine and google earth providing pictures of any part of the planet you want to look at that helps people make a connection between their own lives and the planet that we share when we think about some of the [00:03:23] Speaker 1: technology gaps that still exist in fighting climate change what do you see as some of the big technology [00:03:29] Speaker 2: gaps that we still need to fill well we're we're making tremendous progress on transforming the production of electricity to renewable sources we're on the verge of dramatic progress and substituting electric vehicles for the internal combustion vehicles and that's where the liquid carbon fuel economy comes in we still need more progress on processing heat and industry we still need to do more to retrofit buildings commercial industrial and residential about a quarter of all the global warming pollution comes from inefficient buildings we need more and faster transformation towards sustainable agriculture and [00:04:13] Speaker 1: sustainable forestry and sustainable fishing and what about climate data are there gaps in climate data that you think we should also be focused on a [00:04:21] Speaker 2: addressing yes under the paris agreement every country that signed it is required to be transparent on their data and the united nations is now working with national governments and ngos to make sure that's available and every five years each nation is required to do an update of their plans to reduce emissions and since we do have this incredible reduction in price for renewable energy efficiency and the rest every five years there are brand new exciting opportunities for business industry and nations to simultaneously reduce their emissions and boost their economic growth sustainable growth you know solar jobs in the u.s are now growing 17 times faster than other jobs and according to the bureau of labor statistics the single fastest growing job for the next 10 years is wind turbine technician so this is the bright spot in the economy and we need to get more information out there about how we can create more jobs and and take advantage of these these advances [00:05:36] Speaker 1: so when we think 10 years from now perhaps another film where do you think we'll be a decade from now 10 years from now i hope that we'll be able to look back on the preceding decade [00:05:49] Speaker 2: and and say uh with with a good feeling we've turned the corner we finally aroused enough awareness that leaders around the world committed themselves to helping us solve this crisis [00:06:06] Speaker ?: you Thank you.