We face a real and present danger in human-accelerated climate change. Over the past several years, the global scientific community has converged in an unprecedented way to near unanimously agree that climate change is both being caused and accelerated by human greenhouse gas emissions, that the pace is accelerating, and that if unchecked, it will result in catastrophic damage to earth and the severe loss of life.
In contrast, and more optimistically, we as humanity are progressing in broad technological development at a similarly unprecedented pace: making massive advancements in AI, blockchain, cybersecurity, synthetic biology, etc. More specific to countering climate change, we are also developing relevant technologies that would seem to provide methods to combat it at scale; things like both nuclear fission and fusion, solar and other renewables, AI for tracking and understanding energy usage and production, carbon captures methods, and stable coins for aligning economic incentives. Unfortunately, our human emotions, governing structures, and outdated policies are limiting this potential.
Climate change can be massively slowed by technological progress and the large-scale alignment of economic incentives, but I do not believe we will truly “solve” our climate challenge unless we can rapidly approach a new global unison.
Upon reflection throughout our class discussions, I was struck by a recurring theme: our conversation often reverted to a topical mean: society is bad at governing itself, we often suffer from a tragedy of the commons, and humans are bad at sacrificing for things they can’t quantify and thinking on long time scales. I do believe in the optimism that new technology affords – I think that new technology development combined with a thoughtful restructuring of incentives will help to drastically alleviate climate effects on a country and event regional basis. However, my optimism wanes when it comes to reaching the global outcomes needed to truly curtail climate change.
I believe that differing structures can “solve” this problem on the micro scale, whether capitalism or communism, so long as they can effectively forecast for the future, sacrifice in the present, and adjust incentives to produce the desired outcomes. What I do not believe, however, is that we will ever “solve” climate change on a global scale while these differing governing systems co-exist. True global unison won’t happen in the way it is needed unless we rectify ideological differences from a geopolitical perspective. This is a problem without a simple solution and many of the solutions look like conflict, war, and hostile takeover. I think that we will lose efficiency of any progress “at the boundaries” – countries won’t make the changes necessary to truly solve the climate problem if it puts them at a relative disadvantage to other competitors, regardless of whether or not everyone is progressing. Sticks and carrots are less important in this framing – but rather the associated pace of advancement that results from the carrots or sticks.
For me, this leaves me with two primary conclusions: (1) exponential technology trends have the promise of drastically alleviating and solving some of our biggest problems, and I believe they will, and (2) some of the biggest challenges we face boil down to our ideology and ability to reach consensus at the global level – something that has eluded us in history but just might be possible with the assistance of technology. For us to persist, it has to be.
Cameron McCord is a former venture capital investor in emerging technology at Lux Capital, business and strategy lead at Saildrone and a product manager at Anduril Industries where he built and designed AI-enabled anti-drone systems. Prior to joining HBS (Class of ’22), he worked in various government roles at the White House and U.S. House of Representatives and served in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear submarine officer.
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