As a summer of extreme weather ebbs for many of us, we look at climate solutions, because they’re out there. Plus, what’s new with “nudging,” and how senior McKinsey colleagues dealt with their fear of public speaking back when they were rookies. |
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Sobering. The case for broad action on climate has been clarified, yet again, as record temperatures, flooding, and other extreme weather events sweep the globe. We know the playbook calls for reining in emissions of atmosphere-warming carbon, and fast. |
No one-size-fits all response. What’s less known, perhaps, is the diversity of strategies for doing so. Scientists estimate that limiting warming to 1.5°C would reduce the odds of initiating the most dangerous and irreversible effects of climate change, but the complex interaction of variables makes it difficult to model how to get there. In practice, every region, city, industry, and company has a unique pathway it can follow. |
Regional models. Europe, for example, has many potential ways to arrive at its goal of reaching net-zero climate emissions by 2050. In this report from late 2020, we discuss a pathway that can have economic benefits, including GDP growth and job creation, by leaning heavily on the power industry to scale up wind and solar energy. That model may not work in a place like Japan, where extreme topography has limited the use of solar and wind farms. One pathway we explored for Japan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 includes restarting nuclear plants and developing solar and wind farms offshore. It would also require some costly fixes, including more nascent carbon capture and hydrogen fuel technologies. |
Opportunities for industry. Global airlines are already exploring how to reduce emissions by scaling up production and the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) made from materials such as cooking oil and agricultural remnants. India, for its part, is championing the production of these fuels at scale, drawing on a vibrant group of local “clean skies” organizations and abundant farming byproducts, used cooking oil, and other solid waste. Another pathway can be found in the steelmaking industry: hydrogen, rather than natural gas, fuels the production of so-called direct reduced iron. However, this lower-emissions production method is limited for now by availability of raw materials. |
Prioritize. The first step toward carbon reduction, for companies in particular, is determining which needs are most pressing and where an organization can make changes for the biggest impact. That requires narrowing sustainability goals to a list of priority topics and determining the business structures to carry out changes, including giving the right people agency to make decisions. |
Hitting reverse. All of that said, reducing emissions to keep warming below 1.5°C is getting more difficult, experts acknowledge. Limiting the world’s exposure to the physical hazards resulting from climate change and averting potentially catastrophic feedback loops in the Earth’s climate that lead to permanent warming will also require removing CO2 that is already in the atmosphere. There are a range of ways to do that, a recent McKinsey analysis for the Coalition for Negative Emissions suggests, from “natural climate solutions” (such as planting forests to absorb CO2) to developing ways to capture and store CO2 geologically—for example, in sealed rock formations underground. |
One final, concrete step. Curing cement (a hard-to-abate sector) in a CO2-rich environment can result in building slabs and blocks that are around 25 percent CO2 by weight—carbon that would be removed from the atmosphere and locked in buildings and sidewalks. The method has the benefit of using less limestone than conventional Portland cement, whose production process contributes around 7 percent of industrial CO2 emissions globally. Think of it as one of the many tangible building blocks for a lower-emissions future. |
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INTERVIEW |
Much anew about ‘nudging’ |
Since Harvard professor Cass Sunstein and University of Chicago professor Richard Thaler introduced the concept of nudging to the world in 2008, about 400 “nudge units”—or behavioral-insights teams—have been established in public- and private-sector organizations around the world. In this wide-ranging conversation with McKinsey, they talk about the ethical considerations of nudging, how nudging can be “fun,” whether they’ve ever nudged themselves out of any personal behavior, and whether their new book, Nudge: The Final Edition, is really final. |
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MORE ON MCKINSEY.COM |
Building a transport system that works | What makes for a smooth commute? We benchmarked transport systems in 25 cities around the globe to find out which urban areas are doing better at investing to improve their public-transport infrastructure. |
Five areas of growth for digital marketing in ASEAN | With growth increasingly hard to achieve, Southeast Asian companies must make decisive moves in five areas of modern digital marketing to capture potential opportunities. |
The savings opportunity chemical players overlook | A lack of transparency around inbound freight has meant that chemical companies have generally overlooked these costs in their drive for procurement excellence. But new tools and techniques make it easier to track spending. |
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WHAT WE’RE THINKING |
My rookie moment |
Everybody has to start somewhere. McKinsey Global Publishing asked some of our most senior colleagues to share their most instructive “rookie moments.” Our hope is that when you find yourself in similar situations, this series will provide guidance, confidence, and inspiration. |
One of people’s most common phobias is the fear of public speaking. Our colleagues have to do a lot of it, often in high-stakes situations. In this first episode, Katy George, Tania Holt, Eric Kutcher, Chris Leech, Acha Leke, Kevin Sneader, and Lareina Yee talk about presentations they had to give—sometimes unexpectedly and without much preparation—to senior clients or large groups, and the lessons learned from those experiences. |
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— Edited by Barbara Tierney |
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BACKTALK |
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