SPEED & SCALE

A venture capitalist and a host of relevant contributors lay down a practical path in the fight against climate change.

The book features firsthand accounts from Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Al Gore, Mary Barra, and other big names in the “cleantech” world. Doerr warns that even in the unlikely event that nations keep their pledges from the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world will still be more than four degrees hotter by 2100, a global catastrophe. Experts agree on the critical importance of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and getting halfway there by 2030. Doerr approaches the problem as a hard-nosed businessman who sees an opportunity, creates a plan, and organizes resources before moving ahead. Using this approach and prose that is superior to many similar books, the author crafts a specific, comprehensible description of the elements that contribute to climate change and what needs to be done. Six chapters propose six solutions. Few will surprise readers (“Electrify Transportation,” “Clean Up Industry,” “Protect Nature,” “Remove Carbon”), although “Fix Food” requires major changes in agriculture as well as our diet, cooking, and waste disposal. Throughout, readers are guided by ingenious illustrations and often startling facts—e.g., China and the U.S. rank No. 1 and No. 2 in greenhouse gas production, followed by the world’s 1 billion cows. The concluding four chapters describe how to meet zero emissions. “We need a quantum leap in speed and scale,” writes the author, “unprecedented sums on a very tight schedule...as much as $1.7 trillion each year—and we’ll need to go full throttle for twenty years or more.” While acknowledging obstacles, Doerr points out that the world is moving in the right direction. Governments (China and the EU if not the U.S.) have approved green policies with definite goals, and mass movements have persuaded innumerable businesses to promise zero emissions—whether they deliver will be critical. Entrepreneurs are paying attention. In January 2021, their clean technology investments exceeded the total for all of 2015.

Yet another prospective solution to climate change, but one of the most feasible.