The world has only deployed 10% of the climate technologies it needs to achieve net zero, new research by McKinsey shows

I was somewhat disappointed- although less surprised – to read a recent summary of where the world is at in relation to deployment of effective climate technologies to tackle the crisis engulfing our planet.

While people of my generation and younger have grown up knowing our energy mix has to change from fossil fuels to renewables – and as a matter of increasing urgency – it would appear that the requisite energy transition is still in its infancy.

We are halfway through climate’s decisive decade and yet the report by business consultants McKinsey concludes only about 10% of the low-emissions technologies needed by 2050 to meet global climate commitments are in place.

Cris Bradley, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company and a director of the McKinsey Global Institute, Mekala Krishnan, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute and Humayun Tai, a McKinsey senior partner and leader of McKinsey’s Global Energy and Materials Practice, have conducted some insightful analysis into the current energy mix.

And we cannot shy away from the fact that it makes for disturbing reading. We knew there would be bumps in the road but the current go-slow cannot be tolerated.

I’m honestly not sure what more science, analysis, tips and strategies it will take for world leaders – political and business – to step up and grab this issue and run with it.

Yes, there has been a build up of momentum over recent years but the McKinsey authors are right – in the face of rising global uncertainties, it is time for a pragmatic reality check to understand where are we really, and what it will take to get the rest of the job do.

“Achieving the rest of the transition requires confronting the reality that the energy transition is at its core a colossal transformation of the physical world,” they wrote and they are, of course, right.

“Today’s energy system is vast and complex, encompassing around 60,000 power plants, oil and gas pipelines that extend a distance equivalent to the moon and back—twice, over a billion vehicles, and the annual production of billions of tonnes of essential materials like steel and cement. All of this comes together to effectively deliver the needs of modern society, albeit while contributing to 85% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and in a highly inefficient fashion—about two-thirds of energy is wasted.

“The world therefore needs a blueprint for physically transforming this complex colossus on the basis of which effective policies, incentives, and investments can be made. We have done just that—and identified 25 physical challenges related to the performance of low-emissions technologies and what it will take to deploy them.”

Thankfully, there is some good news. “Meaningful progress has been achieved on 13 challenges, such as enhancing the range of passenger battery EVs and the effectiveness of heat pumps in cold conditions. For these, making progress means continuing the momentum and removing constraints to their deployment. However, 12 challenges are particularly demanding—and 40 to 60% of the CO2 emissions of the energy system cannot be abated unless they are tackled.

“Two of the “demanding dozen” are in the power system, the epicenter of the energy transition. First, solar and wind are highly effective power generators, but as their share in the electricity generation mix rises, the system will need to cope with periods without enough sunshine or wind. This requires more and new forms of storage, more interconnections between grids, backup generation, and flexibility on the demand side. But all of these solutions have execution challenges and some have hardly been deployed. Second, while rich countries can tack wind and solar on top of existing generation capacity, emerging systems lack this foundational capacity—and this is also where access to electricity needs to grow the most.”

They also point out two of the biggest elephants in the climate crisis room – battery weight limits the payload that long-haul, heavy-duty electric trucks can carry and their range. And nearly all ships and airplanes still run on fossil fuels.

“Four challenges relate to producing the “big four” industrial materials—steel, cement, plastics, and ammonia. Their production process requires fossil fuels to generate high-temperature heat, and often uses them as an input. These are industrial areas where there is almost no low-emissions primary production yet.

“Two challenges stem from hydrogen. Despite being described as the “Swiss army knife” of the transition, hydrogen is voluminous, flammable, leaky, and needs a lot of energy to convert back and forth into useable forms, often making it less energy-efficient than other options. And there is a huge scaling challenge: Multiplying electrolyzer capacity by a factor of thousands and extending the length of hydrogen pipelines.

“The final two challenges involve eliminating residual carbon dioxide through capturing point-source carbon and direct carbon removal, both of which are energy-intensive and technically challenging.”

The authors identify the fact that for business leaders and policymakers, tackling the “demanding dozen” will be dependent on overcoming a number of key challenges – substantial technological performance gaps, limited progress thus far, and therefore scant track record of execution (both of which also contribute to their high costs), and “deep interlinkages between the demanding dozen themselves, which means that none of these challenges can be solved in isolation”.

Entities in the construction industry collaborate on a daily, even hourly, basis to help an idea on an architect’s drawing pad pass through all the planning hoops, onto a site and finally into a fully functioning (hopefully sustainably) element of the built environment.

How can it be that they still operate in silos when it comes to playing their part in energy efficiency – and by default energy transformation?

Collaboration in all its forms has to be the starting point in this complex journey – cross country, cross government, cross sector, cross resource, you name it – working collectively, sharing data, promoting good practice has to be the basis of any meaningful change.

We all know we are in a race against time and very many of the answers are at our fingertips. It’s a long way from 10% to our goals but it’s not impossible. Indeed, the McKinsey commentators said: “It will take reimagining the very art of the possible. To overcome these inherent difficulties, it will be essential to push the technological frontier. But the system will also need to be redesigned to change how technologies mesh together and the ways energy itself is used.”

Companies like mine are here to help those who have to carry out the heavy lifting in this arena – both physical and metaphorical – and we unashamedly make it our business to agitate for change and faster progress.

As the McKinsey report said: “Reducing emissions is critical to ensure the world meets the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement, but it is a monumental task. The only way to give the goal of net zero a real chance is to understand the physical challenges—what we call the “hard stuff”—and use that knowledge to execute well.”

We remain “Up” on that knowledge so you don’t have to. But let’s work together – yes, that word “collaborate” again – so we can all pull in the same direction and imagine, design and implement relevant climate technologies which will make the long journey as smooth and bump-free as possible.