Climate Change
Climate change is one of the central challenges of the 21st century. Building and linking the policies, technologies, financial systems, and markets needed to achieve climate goals is key to addressing this challenge.
Building a low-carbon grid is like building a sports team with star players and supporting players. Or, more accurately, it’s like re-building a sports team, where you have to go from underdogs to world champs.
First, you have to retire the under-performers like coal. Then, you have to grow your star players — namely wind and solar. Finally, you have to get your star players to work together with supporting players.
In our second episode of season 1, Dr. Melissa Lott explores the shifting power plant mix through a sports metaphor.
We’ll also cut through the confusion and blame in the wake of the Texas grid disaster in February 2020. Why were so many people pointing to renewable energy, when fossil fuels caused the biggest problems?
Guests: Erin Douglas and Dr. Joshua Rhodes.
The Big Switch is produced by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy in partnership with Post Script Media. Our producers are Daniel Woldorff, Dalvin Aboagye and Stephen Lacey. A special thanks to Kirsten Smith, Genna Morton, Artealia Juilliard and Kyu Lee.
Geothermal energy doesn’t get near the attention that wind and solar do. But to decarbonize…
Energy access is central to reducing poverty. Energy is also critical to developing country efforts to move towards broader prosperity, which are significantly increasing their demand for energy.
There’s been a pretty major shake-up in the world of transit decarbonization. This summer, the…
As global warming mitigation and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction become increasingly urgent to counter climate change, many nations have announced net-zero emission targets as a commitment to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In this episode, a former oil-and-gas man named Efrem Jernigan catches the solar bug. Inspired…
Climate change is one of the central challenges of the 21st century. Building and linking the policies, technologies, financial systems, and markets needed to achieve climate goals is key to addressing this challenge.
On this show we talk a lot about the “big switch” to zero-carbon energy sources….
A major military engagement could occur in the Asia-Pacific region in the form of a possible conflict between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.
Energy security has long been a central objective of energy policy, yet remains poorly understood and defined. Assessing energy security risks, and how they are evolving, is key for both the public and private sector.
Establishing energy policy solutions informed by rigorous research and dialogue is key to addressing climate change, increasing access to energy, and sparking innovation for a thriving global energy economy.
Climate change is one of the central challenges of the 21st century. Building and linking the policies, technologies, financial systems, and markets needed to achieve climate goals is key to addressing this challenge.
Although it is a source of essentially carbon-free power, nuclear energy remains one of the most divisive components of the world’s primary energy mix. Its future rests largely on questions of cost, safety, waste management and proliferation-resistant technology.