Nature Tech: A nascent ecosystem

• Main Author: Simon J.D. SCHILLEBEECKX
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics; Strategic Management Policy; Technology and Innovation
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7415; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/8414/viewcontent/Nature_Tech_a_nascent_ecosystem_pv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

When people talk about climate tech, they tend to mean carbon tech. It’s all carbon tunnel vision: Carbon footprint, carbon equivalent, carbon credit, carbon compensation, carbon emission reductions, carbon offsets, decarbonization and so on. By extension, the entire debate about energy transition, energy transformation, clean power and green energy is similarly a debate that is largely held within the carbon tunnel. Make no mistake about it. These are important topics to address. The energy transition will not only prevent catastrophic climate change but have massive benefits for human health by tackling fossil-fuel induced air pollution at the source.As the above highlights, there is more at play than justified concerns and alarm bells about the atmospheric carbon concentration. The reason we care about the climate is not necessarily because we have an inherent affection to the climate as it is. It is because we enjoy the benefits a stable and temperate climate gives us. It’s not about increasing carbon in the atmosphere (wtf is 417ppm anyway?), it’s not even about a heating planet, it’s about what such a hotter planet will do to life as we know it. Not only for us humans, but for many of our constructions, as well as all fauna and flora.