THE CARBON WAR

Epilogue 345
Peace drafted the Papal encyclical on climate change. We were watching two
very different constituencies at work on climate change in these May scenes.
The Pope and his advisors went to great lengths to bullet-proof the advice
they drew on in the encyclical, before it went out to the world’s billion-plus
Catholics. Elon Musk and his innovative colleagues would have prepared no
less hard before unveiling their batteries at the launch of Tesla Energy. The
devotees of tech around the world number no fewer than Catholics, I imagine.
Each community holds the potential to be a powerful voice for climate action.
The two voices together are so much bigger than the sum of the parts. And of
course, these are just two of the constituencies from civil society that were so
vocal in Paris. We can expect many more synergies of this kind, planned or
inadvertent, in 2016 and beyond.
In June 2015, we saw in Bonn that synergy among sub-national constituencies
was already at impressive levels, in what the UN calls the “groundswell”.
We also went to New Orleans to attend a solar conference as big as an oil
and gas junket, with a thousand presenters. There we could sense that the
solar revolution has a human-resource engine room, one that is priming the
industry for the accelerated growth it will need to achieve now that Paris has
succeeded. Match the global groundswell with the solar talent pool, add the
battery link to motive power and the ethical arguments of leaders of world
religions and you would have had a potent recipe for transition even if Paris
had failed. And it didn’t fail.
In late June 2015 we went to a Formula E grand prix race in Battersea
Park. We heard engineers enthusing about the pace of innovation compared
to Formula 1, especially in battery technology, with expectations of doubled
battery power within five years. We heard Formula E boss Alejandro Agag
express hope that in 5 years the world will see Formula E teams from Apple
and Tesla alongside those from Virgin, Renault and the rest racing that day.
But now, after Paris, why would they wait five years?
In July 2015, we visited Solarcentury in London and SolarAid in Nairobi
to take a dive into the world of solar innovation. We met people who are
driving the kind of innovation that will make the electricity flowing into the
batteries of Tesla, Formula E, and the rest ever cheaper, and ever closer to zero
emissions. We also encountered some of the problems faced by organisations
endeavouring to be innovative, on the solar front lines. Fast growth and clever
innovation does not equal certainty of commercial success, especially in a
world where goalposts of all kinds are being moved by those working against
transition. SolarAid and our retail arm SunnyMoney were in dire trouble with