Looking at the bright side of life

Q: Hannah, you call yourself a pragmatic optimist. But that wasn't always the case, was it?

A: A decade ago, I think I would have definitely framed myself as a pessimist. I think back then, it just seemed like everything was getting worse and worse and worse; it was really hard to see any type of progress… (But) over the last 10 years or so that's really flipped, I can now call myself a pragmatic optimist… We actually are seeing change on the ground, it’s just about accelerating it.

Q: But you write that the world has never been sustainable.

A: The world has never been sustainable. I think we have this notion that we've only become unsustainable very recently, like maybe in the last 50 to 100 years when we've seen this take-off of fossil fuels. I think when you go to the basic definition of sustainability, it has two halves. There's one half, which is protecting the environment… to protect future generations and not rob them of opportunities, and also protect other species. So that's the environmental lens. 

But there's another whole dimension, which is wanting to provide a good life for everyone today, to reduce human suffering, (because) everyone in the world deserves a good standard of living. And for me, sustainability is balancing both of those things at the same time.

I don't think we've actually done that. In the past, our ancestors might have had a very low environmental footprint, but often living standards were very poor. One example I use is that child mortality rates were extremely, extremely high, and obviously led to immense human suffering. Now over the last few centuries, that's (moved) the other way. So we've massively improved human wellbeing, but it came at the cost of the environment. 

(But) I think we could be the first generation that achieves both of these things at the same time…I think we're now at the stage where we have the technologies, we have the political power, we have the economic power, where these things are no longer incompatible.

Q: What is going to push us towards sustainability then?

A: I think the major issue with sustainability… is that the true cost of these goods is not completely factored in… So when you burn fossil fuels, the price you're paying on the market does not reflect the future environmental and social damage. Now, there are ways that you can start to try and correct that; you can put a price on carbon.

It was really hard to convince countries to buy (electricity from) solar and wind when coal or gas were much, much cheaper. That was just not in their short-term economic interests. What we've seen over the last decade is the plummeting cost of these low carbon technologies. Solar and wind a decade ago were the most expensive, now they’re the cheapest. For electric cars, the batteries were so expensive a decade ago, they're now getting comparable with petrol and diesel cars… Why I'm more optimistic now is that I also see the short-term economic opportunities aligning with sustainability.

Sustainably optimistic

Q: But we know that part of the biggest challenge is not the rich world, but the poor world. And we know that those developing countries need USD2.4 trillion every year to deal with climate. 

A: Low carbon technologies, they're falling very quickly in price…the price per unit of energy is less than coal or gas. But I think when it comes to finance, it's really important to reiterate how different the cost structures of renewables are compared to fossil fuels. When you're building a solar plant, or a wind plant, all of the cost of that is upfront. (But) once they're in the ground or on the farm, the energy is basically free… You may have some maintenance costs, but the costs are very front-loaded… That's also why these technologies are so vulnerable to high interest rates. (For) fossil fuels, on the other hand, there's some cost in building the plant, but the majority is actually buying the fuel, buying the gas and buying the coal, and that's spread over decades. 

If people don't have the capital to build it in the first place, then it won't get built. So yes, these technologies are cheaper, but there is really a crucial upfront capital cost that we need to take into consideration. And if we don't have investors, primarily from the rich world, playing some role in financing this, that transition will just slow down.

Q: Do we have to choose between mitigation and adaption?

A: Regardless of how fast we move on reducing emissions, we are just going to see temperatures rise for a while. And we need to make sure that everyone in the world – but primarily the poorest who have contributed the least – are resilient to those disasters. What I mean is, when it comes to disasters over the last century, we've actually made incredible progress. One of the reasons why I was so pessimistic in the past is because I was getting so many headlines of disasters; I think my assumption there was just that more and more people were dying from disasters than ever before. But actually, when you step back to look at the data, we've seen this very long-term decline (in such deaths) over the last century. And that's not because disasters are not getting worse, or they're getting less intense… But it's because we’ve become more resilient to them. We have early warning systems, people are richer, they can live in earthquake-proof buildings, we have more resilient agriculture. So that's a massive gain. And we need to continue to see this progress. 

Q: Is it up to youth to fix this?

A: I think the generational divide is actually a little bit too exaggerated. There’s often this impression (that) young people really care about climate change, but no one else does. Actually I've just not found that to be true. I think it's quite unfair, I think most people actually care about climate change and want to do something about it. There's this constant finger pointing. And to me, that's just not that productive… There (are) larger inequalities that we need to bridge, but it is a collective exercise.

You can pick almost any metric in the world and see we're not where we want to be on any of the health metrics or hunger or poverty or any of the environmental problems. But part of the work that we (are) trying to paint is that the world is much better than it was. Many of these metrics are moving in the right direction, so the world is getting better. And humans actually can make progress. The data shows that you need to use those tools to galvanise this understanding that the world can be much better. So it's fine to be anxious, it's fine to be concerned. But (we need to combine that with) understanding that we've made progress in the past, so we should be able to make progress in the future if we actually have a good go at it.