Future Technology Will Solve Climate Change? Don’t Believe It
Merkel made the pragmatic case for carbon reductions at the UN, but it was more expedient than honest.
Dreamer.
Photographer: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images
On climate change, leaders have a tendency to make lofty long-term promises but take only baby steps to reach them. At the United Nations climate summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave an interesting explanation for why: They believe technology eventually will pick up the slack. This represents an ideological divide with environmental advocates, who don’t put much stock in the inevitability of technological progress and would rather support fail-safe curbs on consumption now.
Merkel was responding to an address by the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who said world leaders weren’t doing enough to reach the goal set out in the Paris climate agreement: to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century. “She gave a rousing speech,” Merkel told a press conference on Tuesday. “But also one which, in my view, underplayed the role of technology and innovation, particularly in the field of energy, but also in the field of energy savings, in opening up opportunities for us to achieve our goals.”