How To Increase Your Knowledge of Climate Solutions (#17)

“Whatever expertise you have, there are ways to put it to use to solve the climate problem.” – Akshat Rathi

Akshat Rathi is a senior reporter for Quartz, where he covers science, energy, and the environment. This coming January, he’ll join the excellent sustainability reporting team at Bloomberg News.

I’ve been following Akshat’s climate reporting over 2019 after he created my favorite climate newsletter, The Race To Zero Emissions. The weekly email newsletter tracks what’s working to bring down emissions, what’s notable and worth watching, and what’s happening that’s driving emissions up. It has a Tech bent and also captures the human story as our civilization confronts climate change.

Akshat has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Oxford. He tells stories of the people and their ideas tackling the biggest problem facing humanity: climate change. And he is currently working on a book about scaling up climate solutions.

In 2018, he won Journalist of the Year at The Drum’s Online Media Awards ceremony, he was a finalist for the John B. Oakes award for distinguished environmental journalism, and he was shortlisted for British Science Writer of the Year by the Association of British Science Writers.

In this podcast episode, we talk about big trends taking place in the most populous countries in the world, namely India and China. Akshat notes that the world’s greatest champion of electric vehicles is not Elon Musk. It’s a Chinese auto engineer named Wan Gang. And that has everything to do with the fact that China is by far the world’s largest market today for electric vehicles. We talk about why and how India is jumping into Electric Vehicles, but how those vehicles look very different than the ones we drive here in the United States.

Akshat’s perspective is global. He grew up in India. He reports on climate solutions from London. He collaborates increasingly with colleagues around the world. And we bring this perspective into today’s conversation.

As I mentioned in Episode 2 of the podcast, my own environmental epiphany came while living in China over 20 years ago.

And I think gaining access to a broader scope of understanding about all the places in the world that are contending climate change, wrestling with it, and working on solutions is worth understanding because it makes us more informed. That’s what today’s show is all about.

This week on The Last Environmentalist Podcast:

• Powerful messages from the scaling climate solutions book that Akshat is currently writing
• How past cultural revolutions demonstrate that there is hope for humanity and the climate
• Why the adoption of clean technologies is slower in the West
• Why EV adoption is high in India
• How the worlds of innovation and regulation intersect
• Why regulation and taxes are a vital part of the solution
• The latest stories in The Race to Zero Emissions newsletter
• Why the media landscape does not have geographical equality in reporting climate stories
• How Heliogen concentrates solar energy to over 1000C and why this is a big deal
• Reducing our carbon emissions and what we need to be mindful of

Resources Mentioned

• The Race To Zero Emissions Newsletter
• Heliogen
• Bloomberg New Energy Finance

This episode is sponsored by Simbly Furniture

Simbly Furniture is the maker of modern, environmentally responsible, American-made furniture. Simbly’s sleek tables, benches, and desks are made of FSC-certified sustainable wood and shipped directly to customers from the Simbly factory in Asheville, NC.

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Impacting the Environment, One Story at a Time

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