Five decades ago, a scientist at a major oil company invented a device that would change the world. It would take a while to do so
Five decades ago, a scientist at a major oil company invented a device that would change the world. It would take a while to do so
Written by Benjamin Tincq, Jonny Everett
on April 19, 2024
This is the first of a series of letters that Voyager will write on climate change, technology, investment, and the long-term value created at their intersections. Think of this as Voyager’s first set of blueprints, laying out our vision for decarbonization.
Voyager’s guiding concept for stabilizing the climate is faster every day. Today’s earth system is one of rapidly accelerating climate risks and impacts. However, the tools to avert disaster and create long-term economic value are rapidly advancing too. More than ever, we see an opportunity for technology to durably and profitably restore balance to the global climate system.
At Voyager, we see decarbonization as the next industrial revolution. We believe that using technology, ingenuity, and invention to drive worldwide greenhouse gas emissions to zero is the single greatest business opportunity of this century. For more than a decade before we founded Voyager, we recognized — and built for — the extraordinary opportunity that replacing fossil fuels in the global economy represents. This is an opportunity to create a foundation for growth that can endure for centuries.
We see three paths in the global carbon transition, all of which are necessary: scaling deployment of the decarbonized technology that works today, expanding the application of what works to new sectors, and creating entirely new technologies. We believe decarbonization will occur in a world of distributive abundance: the low-carbon technologies that can successfully power gains in quality of life for people around the world are also the most likely to see rapid adoption and scale. We recognize that this global transition will require systems-level thinking and systems-level action: coordinated activity will save money and time and is required to achieve transformative change in how we produce energy, food, and everything else.
Importantly, we believe that success begets more success. Progress in decarbonization unlocks additional opportunity as markets mature, supply chains develop, people begin to believe in progress as it becomes more visible around them, and cheap, effective decarbonized technologies provide the foundation for the next layer of advances. Successes accumulate and enable further successes, across an opportunity surface the size of the planet itself.
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Where We Are Now and Where We Need to Go
We start with a well-known fundamental condition, but one worth emphasizing: climate change is very real, it is becoming more urgent, and it impacts everything. Today, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are higher than they have been in 800,000 years, which we know from ice core studies and air monitoring sites.
Higher concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and hydroflourocarbons) not only make for a warmer earth - they make a more volatile earth. Higher temperatures strain and may break existing infrastructure, supply chains, geopolitical compacts, and food and agricultural systems. The stability we have assumed from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution until today is gone; climate change will affect every business and every person on earth.
Emissions Are Unevenly Distributed Across the Global Economy
Stabilizing the climate means one thing above all: addressing the sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Fossil fuel combustion, chemical production, and industrial processes result in carbon dioxide, while many agricultural practices generate methane as well, a more potent if shorter-lived gas. It is worth examining the sources of these gases by sector. Contributions are not what many might expect. Residential structures emit more than commercial structures, for instance. Livestock and manure emit as much carbon dioxide equivalent as the global chemical and petrochemical industries.
Emissions sources come in several flavors, representing the concentrated or diffuse nature of the economic activity that generated them. There are high-emitting activities from many millions of fairly-similar fuel-burning machines which industries know how to address (road transport), highly concentrated sectors where industry is already looking to change (iron and steelmaking, cement, marine shipping), and a tail of smaller and potentially more challenging sectors like crop burning, rice cultivation, and agricultural soils. Electricity and heat production (31.9% of total emissions), transportation (14.2%), manufacturing and construction (12.6%), buildings (5.9%) and industrial processes (5.9%) account for more than 70% of global emissions.
Economic Growth and Improving Quality of Life Do Not Require Commensurate Pollution
We live in a world where we can increase economic growth without increasing emissions. The global economy has already begun decoupling economic growth from emissions growth. On a per-capita basis, global GDP has increased 74.6% since 1990; global emissions per capita have risen only 11.4% during the same time. In the United States, primary energy demand peaked more than a decade ago, while economic activity has continued to grow.
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Apply NowEconomic Growth and Improving Quality of Life Do Not Require Commensurate Pollution
We live in a world where we can increase economic growth without increasing emissions. The global economy has already begun decoupling economic growth from emissions growth. On a per-capita basis, global GDP has increased 74.6% since 1990; global emissions per capita have risen only 11.4% during the same time. In the United States, primary energy demand peaked more than a decade ago, while economic activity has continued to grow.
Economic Growth and Improving Quality of Life Do Not Require Commensurate Pollution
We live in a world where we can increase economic growth without increasing emissions. The global economy has already begun decoupling economic growth from emissions growth. On a per-capita basis, global GDP has increased 74.6% since 1990; global emissions per capita have risen only 11.4% during the same time. In the United States, primary energy demand peaked more than a decade ago, while economic activity has continued to grow.