Good COP - Steven Chu (COP 15)

13 Dec 2009 – Gary Kendall

Half an hour listening to this man instilled in me more confidence that we stand a chance of addressing the climate challenge than I have felt at any time since I began working in this field. The notion that such an eminent scientist – and compelling public speaker – is currently advising Barack Obama on matters of energy and climate change has lifted my spirits no end, and gone a long way to burying painful memories of how the 43rd President of the United States chose to engage the international community for eight long years.

Chu rattled through the key energy issues and challenges with ease and clarity: energy efficiency, wind power, solar-PV, geothermal systems, biofuels, nuclear, carbon capture and storage, and energy storage. Goodness me! Now that the US is truly on board, the extent of the European Union’s “leadership” on climate change risks being brutally exposed.

My favourite Steven Chu moment: during his explanation of the relative merits of different energy storage media (e.g. diesel, kerosene, lithium-ion batteries), he remarked that nature chose body fat for its high energy density rather than its aesthetic properties.

In closing, Chu recounted the following quote from Bill Anders, astronaut on Apollo 8 in 1968 and photographer of the iconic “Earthrise” image (below):

We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth

It is worth reflecting that 1968 – the year before Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind – is as far in the past as 2050 is in the future. If COP 15 does indeed lead to an international consensus on the 2°C threshold, then by 2050 we will need to have completely decarbonised our energy system. Our next moonshot.