Zeke Hausfather: State Of Climate Science, Energy Systems, Post COP26, Tipping Points, Tail Risks

Ben Yeoh Chats

Zeke Hausfather is a climate scientist and energy systems analyst whose research focuses on observational temperature records, climate models, and mitigation technologies. He spent 10 years working as a data scientist and entrepreneur in the cleantech sector, where he was the lead data scientist at Essess, the chief scientist at C3.ai, and the cofounder and chief scientist of Efficiency 2.0. He also worked as a research scientist with Berkeley Earth, was the senior climate analyst at Project Drawdown, and the US analyst for Carbon Brief. Follow his Twitter for his climate thoughts.

We discuss:

What is most misunderstood about climate science today.

Why many doomsday scenarios are unlikely but yet serious damage from climate is happening now.

Why scientists have been poor in communicating what is mean by tipping points with respect to climate.

How he thinks about climate “tail risk” and how tail risk diminishes the less heating happens.

The problems with “averages” and how there is uncertainty not only about our amount of emissions, but the sensitivity of the climate to our emissions.

Why climate is better thought of as a gradient rather than point thresholds.

The problem with climate economics due to time horizons, long time horizons and the discounting models economists use.

Zeke’s view on the range of different projections coming out post COP26 and what they mean.

Zeke’s thoughts on:

-degrowth

-carbon tax

-techno-optimists

-nuclear power

-carbon offsetting

-divestment movement

-gas as a transition fuel

-green New Deal

-Bjorn Lomborg

Zeke finishes with advice for people who want to be involved in climate.

Video/Transcript available here.

Ben's Twitter here.