In the sixth edition of Terrascope’s Climate Cafe, CEO Maya Hari sat down with climate thought leader Nat Bullard to explore where we stand on the road to Net Zero.
IDrawing from his widely followed annual State of Decarbonisation deck, Nat unpacked the critical trends shaping climate progress in 2024. Here's their conversation.
According to Nat, we’re living in a paradox: “All of the negative stock indicators—CO₂ levels, coal use, glacial loss—are at record highs. But so are the positive flow indicators—investment in renewables, EV sales, solar installs.”
In 2023, investment in clean energy hit $1.8 trillion. Solar power saw record-breaking deployment, and electric vehicles accounted for all the growth in the global vehicle market. Yet fossil fuel consumption remains stubbornly high.
To hold both truths is to understand that while decarbonisation pathways are accelerating, global emissions haven’t yet peaked. Progress is nonlinear and demands relentless momentum.
Clean tech is booming in areas with mass manufacturing and high standardisation—think solar panels, batteries, and EVs. These sectors benefit from cost reductions via scale and iteration. But heavy industries like cement, steel, and petrochemicals—where processes are capital-intensive and custom-built—remain tough to abate.
“There’s no such thing as a $50,000 cement plant,” Nat quipped, highlighting the challenge.
Technologies must scale and standardise, but many industries lack the infrastructure to do so quickly.
Food and Agriculture, the so-called “grown economy,” also fall in this category. Here, land becomes both a source of emissions and a potential sink, requiring new thinking in how we measure and incentivise transformation.
88% of global emissions are covered by some form of net zero target. However, most corporate action still sits in the “easy win” category: switching to renewable electricity, offsetting Scope 2 emissions, or purchasing certificates.
“The hard work begins now."
Real decarbonisation means reimagining supply chains, reducing Scope 3 emissions, and making strategic investments—often with longer payback periods.
There’s also a communication gap. ESG reports have grown in length but shrunk in substance. Transparency, integration with financial disclosures, and storytelling rooted in data will be essential to bridge trust gaps and avoid greenwashing—or worse, greenhushing.
From wildfire modelling to product-level carbon footprinting, the data landscape is evolving. Nat emphasized the need for more granular, forward-looking data—especially in land use, deforestation, and agriculture. “The grown economy is hard to measure, but the opportunity is huge,” he said.
AI is already powering breakthroughs—from more efficient flight paths that reduce contrail warming to protein structure discovery that could revolutionise material science and food systems. But it must be energy-conscious and mission-driven.
Bullard also pointed to a future where carbon labelling becomes as common as nutrition labels: “The labeling becomes part of the behaviour. That’s how we shift consumption patterns.”
“All of the numbers on the negative side of the climate ledger are as bad as they’ve ever been, but the numbers that will change them are the best they’ve ever been.” - Nat Bullard