full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Lucas Joppa: How to fix the "bugs" in the net-zero code

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Well, unfortunately, what's become clear is that there are already a few clearly significant bugs in the world's early net-zero program. For instance, we lack a common meaning of the term “net-zero.” We lack a comomn unit of msnmaeueret to assses the climate impact of any net-zero approach. And we’re filniag to mature the mteakrs the world will need to achieve a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. And so what I want to do is just go into a few details, I gsues, on each of these bugs, and then talk really quickly about how I think we might be able to fix them.

And first up is the meaning of “net-zero.” Now, the global definition of net-zero is pretty simple: all of the carbon that humans put into the atmosphere, humans must take out. That sounds supersimple; as we all know, it's turning out to be extremely difficult to do, but that's especially so if you have not ensured alignment between individual, organizational and global dinitoinefs of “net-zero.” And I want to talk, just really quickly, about what I mean by that. And, to use an example to do so, let's pretend that you want to go on viatcoan, a vacation that's going to require transportation, food and lodging, all activities that will emit, let's say, three tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. But you want your trip to be net-zero. Well, today, you really have three onoptis. You could, of course, simply decide not to go, in which case your trip wouldn’t be net-zero, it would be absolute zero. Or you could decide to continue on with your trip, but in this case, pay somebody, on your behalf, to not emit three tonnes of carbon that they otherwise would have. Now, in accounting parlance, this is what's called an avoided emissions offset. But it comes with a catch. Because while you may now be able to calim your emnssiios to be net-zero, and thus, your trip to be net-zero, as a reuslt of canceling out your emissions with those of someone else, you're relying on an aoppcrah that we know simply can't scale to a gbalol net-zero outcome. And the reason that that is true is simply because carbon will still be emitted, although less, but not removed. In the third option -- it's similar to the second -- you're going to citnuone to go on your trip, but in this case, you're going to pay somebody to physically remove three tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere on your bahelf. And this type of pmneyat, called a carbon-removal offset, could theoretically scale from individual, to organizational, to global net-zero otmceous. But in order to do so, it's going to have to have significant technological advances and breakthroughs to achieve the scale necessary.

Open Cloze


Well, unfortunately, what's become clear is that there are already a few clearly significant bugs in the world's early net-zero program. For instance, we lack a common meaning of the term “net-zero.” We lack a ______ unit of ___________ to ______ the climate impact of any net-zero approach. And we’re _______ to mature the _______ the world will need to achieve a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. And so what I want to do is just go into a few details, I _____, on each of these bugs, and then talk really quickly about how I think we might be able to fix them.

And first up is the meaning of “net-zero.” Now, the global definition of net-zero is pretty simple: all of the carbon that humans put into the atmosphere, humans must take out. That sounds supersimple; as we all know, it's turning out to be extremely difficult to do, but that's especially so if you have not ensured alignment between individual, organizational and global ___________ of “net-zero.” And I want to talk, just really quickly, about what I mean by that. And, to use an example to do so, let's pretend that you want to go on ________, a vacation that's going to require transportation, food and lodging, all activities that will emit, let's say, three tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. But you want your trip to be net-zero. Well, today, you really have three _______. You could, of course, simply decide not to go, in which case your trip wouldn’t be net-zero, it would be absolute zero. Or you could decide to continue on with your trip, but in this case, pay somebody, on your behalf, to not emit three tonnes of carbon that they otherwise would have. Now, in accounting parlance, this is what's called an avoided emissions offset. But it comes with a catch. Because while you may now be able to _____ your _________ to be net-zero, and thus, your trip to be net-zero, as a ______ of canceling out your emissions with those of someone else, you're relying on an ________ that we know simply can't scale to a ______ net-zero outcome. And the reason that that is true is simply because carbon will still be emitted, although less, but not removed. In the third option -- it's similar to the second -- you're going to ________ to go on your trip, but in this case, you're going to pay somebody to physically remove three tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere on your ______. And this type of _______, called a carbon-removal offset, could theoretically scale from individual, to organizational, to global net-zero ________. But in order to do so, it's going to have to have significant technological advances and breakthroughs to achieve the scale necessary.

Solution


  1. assess
  2. common
  3. options
  4. claim
  5. result
  6. global
  7. outcomes
  8. continue
  9. emissions
  10. markets
  11. definitions
  12. behalf
  13. approach
  14. failing
  15. payment
  16. measurement
  17. guess
  18. vacation

Original Text


Well, unfortunately, what's become clear is that there are already a few clearly significant bugs in the world's early net-zero program. For instance, we lack a common meaning of the term “net-zero.” We lack a common unit of measurement to assess the climate impact of any net-zero approach. And we’re failing to mature the markets the world will need to achieve a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. And so what I want to do is just go into a few details, I guess, on each of these bugs, and then talk really quickly about how I think we might be able to fix them.

And first up is the meaning of “net-zero.” Now, the global definition of net-zero is pretty simple: all of the carbon that humans put into the atmosphere, humans must take out. That sounds supersimple; as we all know, it's turning out to be extremely difficult to do, but that's especially so if you have not ensured alignment between individual, organizational and global definitions of “net-zero.” And I want to talk, just really quickly, about what I mean by that. And, to use an example to do so, let's pretend that you want to go on vacation, a vacation that's going to require transportation, food and lodging, all activities that will emit, let's say, three tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. But you want your trip to be net-zero. Well, today, you really have three options. You could, of course, simply decide not to go, in which case your trip wouldn’t be net-zero, it would be absolute zero. Or you could decide to continue on with your trip, but in this case, pay somebody, on your behalf, to not emit three tonnes of carbon that they otherwise would have. Now, in accounting parlance, this is what's called an avoided emissions offset. But it comes with a catch. Because while you may now be able to claim your emissions to be net-zero, and thus, your trip to be net-zero, as a result of canceling out your emissions with those of someone else, you're relying on an approach that we know simply can't scale to a global net-zero outcome. And the reason that that is true is simply because carbon will still be emitted, although less, but not removed. In the third option -- it's similar to the second -- you're going to continue to go on your trip, but in this case, you're going to pay somebody to physically remove three tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere on your behalf. And this type of payment, called a carbon-removal offset, could theoretically scale from individual, to organizational, to global net-zero outcomes. But in order to do so, it's going to have to have significant technological advances and breakthroughs to achieve the scale necessary.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
avoided emissions 3
climate impacts 3
carbon removal 3
physically remove 2
common unit 2
global definition 2


Important Words


  1. absolute
  2. accounting
  3. achieve
  4. activities
  5. advances
  6. alignment
  7. approach
  8. assess
  9. atmosphere
  10. avoided
  11. behalf
  12. breakthroughs
  13. bugs
  14. called
  15. canceling
  16. carbon
  17. case
  18. catch
  19. claim
  20. clear
  21. climate
  22. common
  23. continue
  24. decide
  25. definition
  26. definitions
  27. details
  28. difficult
  29. early
  30. economy
  31. emissions
  32. emit
  33. emitted
  34. ensured
  35. extremely
  36. failing
  37. fix
  38. food
  39. global
  40. guess
  41. humans
  42. impact
  43. individual
  44. instance
  45. lack
  46. lodging
  47. markets
  48. mature
  49. meaning
  50. measurement
  51. offset
  52. option
  53. options
  54. order
  55. organizational
  56. outcome
  57. outcomes
  58. parlance
  59. pay
  60. payment
  61. physically
  62. pretend
  63. pretty
  64. program
  65. put
  66. quickly
  67. reason
  68. relying
  69. remove
  70. removed
  71. require
  72. result
  73. scale
  74. significant
  75. similar
  76. simply
  77. sounds
  78. talk
  79. technological
  80. term
  81. theoretically
  82. today
  83. tonnes
  84. transportation
  85. trip
  86. true
  87. turning
  88. type
  89. unit
  90. vacation
  91. world