what made you feel like now was the
right time to make the sequel roughly a
decade on after An Inconvenient Truth
there have been two huge changes in the
last decade number one the
climate-related extreme weather events
are far more common far more destructive
unfortunately in the last seven years
the US has had eleven so-called once in
a thousand year events the second big
change is that we now have solutions
available that we're only visible on the
horizon a decade ago now the cost of
renewable electricity from solar and
wind is frequently well below the cost
of electricity from fossil fuels and
soon that's going to be true everywhere
what's the one technology development
from the last decade that you're the
most excited about do you think could
have the most impact on climate change
well I've been most gratified personally
by the stunning decreases in the price
of electricity from solar photovoltaics
it's almost as steep a cost down curve
as the computer chip revolution
certainly comparable to what's happened
with cell phones over the last few
decades it's really quite remarkable but
if I had to pick one that's racing
forward right now it would be batteries
because the addition of affordable and
hyper efficient batteries to renewable
energy generation that combination is
going to completely transform the
world's energy system and when you look
at some of the emerging technologies on
the horizon things like blockchain
cloud computing machine learning do you
think that they have an important role
to play in fighting climate change
I do blockchain promises to be one of
the half-dozen most significant new
technology revolutions so we're in a
period of sorting it out right now so a
lot of people are still reluctant to
jump into it but if I had to pick the
most important I would pick artificial
intelligence it it can radically change
the efficiency and productivity of
almost any human endeavor
so one thing that I know you talk about
in both films is the the blue Marvel
image of the planet and that that's been
an important image for you and that
that's how you start all your slide
presentations I wanted to hear you talk
a bit more about the importance of
having the ability to visualize the
planet as well as tools that actually
help us visualize the impacts of climate
change like Earth engine yeah well the
old saying a picture is worth a thousand
words
certainly does apply those first
pictures of the Earth from space had a
transformative impact less than 18
months after the first of those pictures
earth rise the first Earth Day was
organized and major environmental
legislation was passed not only in the
US but elsewhere and having regular
pictures of the earth and having the
ability to make sense of it with earth
engine and Google Earth providing
pictures of any part of the planet you
want to look at that helps people make a
connection between their own lives and
the planet that we share when we think
about some of the technology gaps that
still exist in fighting climate change
what do you see as some of the big
technology gaps that we still need to
fill well we're making tremendous
progress on transforming the production
of electricity to renewable sources
we're on the verge of dramatic progress
and substituting electric vehicles for
the internal combustion vehicles and
that's where the liquid carbon fuel
economy comes in we still need more
progress on a processing heat in
industry we still need to do more to
retrofit buildings commercial industrial
and residential about a quarter of all
the global warming pollution comes from
inefficient buildings we need more and
faster transformation towards
sustainable agriculture and sustainable
forestry and sustainable fishing and
what about climate data are there gaps
in climate data that you think we should
also be focused on addressing yes under
the Paris agreement it
country that signed it is required to be
transparent on their data and the United
Nations is now working with national
governments and NGOs to make sure that's
available and every five years each
nation is required to do an update of
their plans to reduce emissions and
since we do have this incredible
reduction in price for renewable energy
efficiency and the rest every five years
there are brand-new exciting
opportunities for business industry and
nations to simultaneously reduce their
emissions and boost their economic
growth sustainable growth
you know solar jobs in the US are now
growing 17 times faster than other jobs
and according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics the single fastest growing
job for the next ten years is wind
turbine technician so this is the bright
spot in the economy and we need to get
more information out there about how we
can create more jobs and and take
advantage of these these advances so
when we think ten years from now
perhaps another film where do you think
we'll be a decade from now ten years
from now I hope that we'll be able to
look back on the preceding decade and
and say with a good feeling we've turned
the corner
we finally aroused enough awareness that
leaders around the world committed
themselves to helping us solve this
crisis