Vijay Vaitheeswaran, whom I have known and worked with for over 30 years, is the long-time global energy and climate innovation editor at The Economist. In the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Conversations on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program,” he expresses his appreciation for bottom-up climate approaches. The podcast is produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. You can listen to our complete conversation here.
Visionary entrepreneurs and the private sector will play increasingly important roles in driving climate progress, Vijay Vaitheeswaran argues, particularly in an era of what he calls “slowbalization,” during which nations will attempt to regionalize and even nationalize supply chains, and establish industrial policies, a trend he says “will have some deleterious consequences” on climate policy. However, he also notes that there could be some longer-term positive effects.
“From the perspective of emissions, I worry. Making very expensive solar panels at home in America or very unattractive and expensive electric cars that nobody wants to buy because you’re reliant on domestic technology or energy storage [is inefficient]. Another example where we have at scale with quite a lot of innovation embedded cutting edge technologies that are available quite inexpensively because China invested and got them to scale and is making them available, but very high tariffs will keep them out of markets like the U.S. And what will happen?,” he asks. “My prediction is that a number of those technologies will be redirected to the emerging world. If that happens, that would be a good thing. It might even help with a green leapfrog in India or certainly in Africa, Latin America. It doesn’t matter to the planet where the emissions cuts are made in the long term.”
Vijay observes that much of current-day green energy solutions are driven by the private sector, and that trend, he says, shows no signs of slowing.
“I have a great deal of appreciation for bottom-up forces, understanding that whatever the cycle and rhythm of international negotiations… and the vicissitudes of domestic policy, that in fact the momentum often builds from the bottom-up, from markets, from the role of business, from the opportunities that are created from technology innovation advancing,” he remarks. “That’s where I keep my eye on both – what’s happening from the top-down… The framework matters, but oftentimes the longer-term trends are determined by what comes from the bottom-up.”
He also notes the trend toward increased use of alternative fuels in several important industrial sectors.
“I think the long game for oil is already in sight that in the long term we know how to electrify transport. That’s a problem that we have a pathway for, certainly in passenger transport. With freight we have to see which technology wins out, whether it is indeed electrification, which is making gains even with freight, even though batteries are heavy and cannot go as far,” he states. “There is an argument for hydrogen or some other kinds of synthetic fuels as well. So, there’s an open competition, but we have pathways to alternatives there. We’re seeing shipping as well moving quite rapidly, in fact, towards some alternatives… to petroleum-based fuels.”
As these alternative fuel technologies come to scale, Vaitheeswaran says, they will help the world lessen its reliance on oil, thereby reducing global CO₂ emissions.
“The way we should work for change faster is to develop these alternatives, make them attractive, make them affordable, keeping in mind energy poverty is still a significant problem for 800 million to a billion people around the world [who have] little or no access to modern energy and to accommodate a world that’s going to use much more energy in future, and rightly so, in developing countries. And in developed countries, of course with the AI surge, we will certainly use more energy for that purpose – to make it clean and firm,” he remarks. “So, I think those are the kinds of outlines of… [a] future that probably calls for fossil fuels to be with us for some time and for more thought in how we think about the emissions from those fuels.”
Vijay also addresses the challenges posed by upstream methane, an issue which has become front and center in recent climate negotiations.
“We now understand, although scientists have known this for a very long time, but much more in the political consciousness, that methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas in the short term in the 10-to-20-year timeframe because it does have a shorter life than CO₂,” he says. “And global accords were reached at Dubai, at the COP Summit, and reaffirmed in Baku, to try to dramatically reduce the methane footprint of oil and gas companies during their production process.”
For this and much more, please listen to my complete podcast conversation with Vijay Vaitheeswaran, the 65th episode over the past five years of the Environmental Insights series, with future episodes scheduled to drop each month. You can find a transcript of our conversation at the website of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. Previous episodes have featured conversations with:
- Gina McCarthy, former Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Nick Stern of the London School of Economics discussing his career, British politics, and efforts to combat climate change
- Andrei Marcu, founder and executive director of the European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition
- Paul Watkinson, Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- Jos Delbeke, professor at the European University Institute in Florence and at the KU Leuven in Belgium, and formerly Director-General of the European Commission’s DG Climate Action
- David Keith, professor at Harvard and a leading authority on geoengineering
- Joe Aldy, professor of the practice of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, with considerable experience working on climate change policy issues in the U.S. government
- Scott Barrett, professor of natural resource economics at Columbia University, and an authority on infectious disease policy
- Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, and founding co-director of the Business and Environment Initiative at Harvard Business School.
- Sue Biniaz, who was the lead climate lawyer and a lead climate negotiator for the United States from 1989 until early 2017.
- Richard Schmalensee, the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Management, and Professor of Economics Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Kelley Kizier, Associate Vice President for International Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund.
- David Hone, Chief Climate Change Adviser, Shell International.
- Vicky Bailey, 30 years of experience in corporate and government positions in the energy sector.
- David Victor, professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego.
- Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk at the The New York Times.
- Coral Davenport, who covers energy and environmental policy for The New York Times from Washington.
- Spencer Dale, BP Group Chief Economist.
- Richard Revesz, professor at the NYU School of Law.
- Daniel Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environment and Law at Yale University.
- William Hogan, Raymond Plank Research Professor of Global Energy Policy at Harvard.
- Jody Freeman, Archibald Cox Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
- John Graham, Dean Emeritus, Paul O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University.
- Gernot Wagner, Clinical Associate Professor at New York University.
- John Holdren, Research Professor, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Larry Goulder, Shuzo Nishihara Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, Stanford University.
- Suzi Kerr, Chief Economist, Environmental Defense Fund.
- Sheila Olmstead, Professor of Public Affairs, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin.
- Robert Pindyck, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Professor of Economics and Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management.
- Gilbert Metcalf, Professor of Economics, Tufts University.
- Navroz Dubash, Professor, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.
- Paul Joskow, Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics emeritus, MIT.
- Maureen Cropper, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland.
- Orley Ashenfelter, the Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics, Princeton University.
- Jonathan Wiener, the William and Thomas Perkins Professor of Law, Duke Law School.
- Lori Bennear, the Juli Plant Grainger Associate Professor of Energy Economics and Policy, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University.
- Daniel Yergin, founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, and now Vice Chair of S&P Global.
- Jeffrey Holmstead, who leads the Environmental Strategies Group at Bracewell in Washington, DC.
- Daniel Jacob, Vasco McCoy Family Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry & Environmental Engineering at Harvard.
- Michael Greenstone, Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, University of Chicago.
- Billy Pizer, Vice President for Research & Policy Engagement, Resources for the Future.
- Daniel Bodansky, Regents’ Professor, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University.
- Catherine Wolfram, Cora Jane Flood Professor of Business Administration, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, currently on leave at the Harvard Kennedy School.
- James Stock, Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University.
- Mary Nichols, long-time leader in California, U.S., and international climate change policy.
- Geoffrey Heal, Donald Waite III Professor of Social Enterprise, Columbia Business School.
- Kathleen Segerson, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of Connecticut.
- Meredith Fowlie, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, U.C. Berkeley.
- Karen Palmer, Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future.
- Severin Borenstein, Professor of the Graduate School, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
- Michael Toffel, Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management and Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School.
- Emma Rothschild, Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History, Harvard University.
- Nathaniel Keohane, President, C2ES.
- Amy Harder, Executive Editor, Cypher News.
- Richard Zeckhauser, Frank Ramsey Professor of Political Economy, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Kimberly (Kim) Clausing, School of Law, University of California at Los Angeles
- Hunt Allcott, Professor of Global Environmental Policy, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
- Meghan O’Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School.
- Robert Lawrence, Albert Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Charles Taylor, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Wolfram Schlenker, Ray Goldberg Professor of the Global Food System, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Karen Fisher-Vanden, Professor of Environmental & Resource Economics, Pennsylvania State University
- Max Bearak, climate and energy reporter, New York Times
“Environmental Insights” is hosted on SoundCloud, and is also available on iTunes, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
