Re-framing Climate Change: From Threat to Opportunity by Efosa Ojamo and Michael B. Horn
According to the latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate, the world still isn’t doing enough to combat human-induced climate change. We shouldn’t be surprised. This is part of a pattern. A top-down approach that asks people to make sacrifices is unlikely to gain traction and build the political support that leaders need to achieve climate goals. Until combating climate change aligns with the progress that people are trying to make in their daily lives — from feeding their families and staying warm to travelling for work and fun — the efforts to change how we consume energy will be futile.
This reality calls for a bottom-up approach led by entrepreneurs and the pursuit of opportunity, not government action based on coercion and threats. The evidence shows that even if they are concerned about climate change, individuals aren’t prioritizing change. In September 2021, a Statista Research survey found that just four per cent of respondents felt dealing with climate change was the most important problem facing the country. Issues such as immigration and the state of the economy ranked higher.
Climate change proposals today equate to spending more money or raising the costs to consumers of products. But for almost 40 per cent of the population, an unexpected $400 expense poses a serious challenge to their budget. They would either have to borrow from a friend, sell something, or put it on a credit card. There are only so many ways one can say ‘the world is burning.’ Threats alone aren’t working.
Research by Clark Gilbert, the former president of Brigham Young University, demonstrates that when organizations ask their teams to re-frame problems as opportunities instead of threats, they are more likely to develop innovative solutions. In contrast, solutions that stem from viewing something as a threat are rigid, top-down and ineffective.
We must all re-frame climate change as an opportunity. Entrepreneurs should develop green innovations that help people make progress on things they actually prioritize; and they shouldn’t seek to cram in innovations that are more expensive than current solutions and rely on government subsidies. They should instead follow the laws of innovation and take one of two paths.
First, innovations improve upon existing technologies to help people better take care of what they prioritize. These sorts of innovations have led to more efficient goods that help explain
the lowering of emissions output in wealthy nations. An example is Nest thermostats. By improving the thermostat, Tony Fadell created a tool that has led to demonstrable savings in both energy and costs. Nest’s Learning Thermostat saved households roughly 10 per cent on heating and 15 per cent on cooling — or $131 to $145 a year. That success is paving the way for even more innovative programs that dynamically price energy and incentivize families to save money and consume less energy. No sacrifices required.
The second path for entrepreneurs is to create new markets that do not yet exist. By investing in green market-creating innovations, all the new technologies will have to do is compete against the alternative — nothing at all, against which they can gain traction and steadily improve to help people make daily progress against more complicated problems and tasks.
d.light, based in India, took this approach. Over two billion people live without reliable access to electricity worldwide. d.light initially created durable, solar-powered lamps fit for consumers’ energy requirements, which were small enough to serve over 100 million individuals and offset 23 million tons of CO . Another company, M-KOPA, enables millions of African families to gain access to solar-powered products such as TVS, refrigerators and fans. It has prevented more than two million tons of CO emissions.
These companies won’t solve the climate challenge by themselves. But the principles behind their success can. Global leaders should stop talking about the importance of climate change and setting goals that will be missed. Instead, they should focus on helping people get things done that are important to them. Rather than rail on the selfishness of those unwilling to make sacrifices in their desires to achieve more prosperous lives, leaders should inspire entrepreneurs to create solutions that fit into those desires. This approach has a much greater likelihood of creating the progress we so sorely need.