Clean energy won't work in the global south... right?

At a moment when the fossil fueled economy is cracking under geopolitical pressure, Daan Walter of EMBER brings the data that reframes everything: clean energy is moving ahead, in developing countries — it's already winning.

Walter unpacks EMBER's latest electricity review findings: for the first time, wind and solar absorbed nearly all global electricity demand growth in 2024, causing fossil fuel generation to actually fall. And unlike the economic shocks of 2020 or 2013, this is structural.

The episode covers the ElectroTech revolution's three core drivers — none of which are explicitly about climate. Walter explains why emerging economies, far from lagging, are leapfrogging the West: over 50% of CVF nations now out-solar the United States.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis is accelerating everything. Pakistan's bottom-up solar revolution — millions buying off Alibaba, DIY-installing, disconnecting from failing utilities — is the preview of what comes next everywhere.

Nuclear gets a candid assessment too, the question is how it can play nice with solar dominating the grid.

Walter closes with a refreshingly honest admission: we don't know yet how to solve the last 5-10% of the grid cleanly — but that's fine. The right move is to sprint the 90% we can solve and invest in R&D for the rest, rather than let perfect be the enemy of transformational.

🧠 Topics Discussed:

⚡ ElectroTech defined: why wind, solar, batteries, EVs, and heat pumps all cluster around electricity as their magnetic center

📉 Bad idea autopsied: "clean energy is too expensive for developing countries" — true five years ago, dangerously wrong today

🌍 CVF nations leapfrogging: 50%+ of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries out-solar the US

💸 Capex parity moment: upfront costs of EVs and solar panels now matching fossil alternatives — the game-changer for capital-constrained economies

🌞 Solar as baseload: 80-90% uptime solar + battery achievable at ~$100-120/MWh; UAE Masdar project hit 99.5% uptime below $70/MWh

🛢️ Hormuz crisis as accelerant: biggest energy shock since the 1970s, turbocharging electrotech exports from China globally

👨‍💼 Guest Bio:

Daan Walter is a Principal at EMBER, where he leads global energy strategy research. His CV spans Rocky Mountain Institute (batteries, efficiency, mineral demand), McKinsey, and two graduate degrees from the University of Cambridge — one in nuclear energy, one in theoretical physics. He's one of the sharpest analysts tracking the real-time pace of the ElectroTech revolution.

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• 💬 Quote Highlights:

  "The answer is not 'you're wrong.' The answer is: you were right five years ago." — Daan Walter

  "The poorest countries in the world and the poorest families within countries are adopting ElectroTech because it's the cheapest option now, not the most expensive." — Daan Walter

  "We identify three key drivers of the ElectroTech revolution across the world. None of those three are explicitly climate." — Daan Walter

  "Every country in the world has a small Saudi Arabia worth of energy falling from the skies on them every year. All they need to do is put a panel up and capture it." — Daan Walter

  "By 2040, we might be in a very highly electrified, very low-carbon economy — in the same way that by 2040, we might be in an economy that largely runs on AI white-collar work." — Daan Walter

  
  

  🌐 About WePlanet:WePlanet is a global citizen and science movement challenging bad ideas and championing evidence-based solutions for climate, nature, and human progress. Learn more at weplanet.org

  
  

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“We can stop worrying about the climate.”

In this episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas speaks with climate scientist Zeke Hausfather about a dangerously complacent idea: we can stop worrying about the climate. As recent years have broken temperature records and warming appears to be accelerating, they explore why that conclusion is badly mistaken.

The conversation unpacks the hidden role of aerosols in masking warming, what recent spikes in temperature do and do not mean, whether net zero really stops further warming, and how seriously we should take tipping points, geoengineering, and carbon removal. The result is a clear-eyed discussion that pushes back against both panic and complacency, and argues for staying focused on the scale and complexity of the climate challenge.

🧠 Topics Discussed

🌡️ Why the rate of global warming appears to be increasing

☁️ How aerosols have masked part of the warming caused by greenhouse gases

🚢 Why shipping pollution controls became part of the climate conversation

🧮 What happens if sulfur dioxide emissions fall even further

♻️ Why reaching net zero means temperatures likely stabilise rather than keep rising

📈 What explains the exceptional warmth of 2023 and 2024

🌍 Whether the world has actually passed 1.5°C yet

🔥 Why climate complacency is just as misleading as climate fatalism

🧊 How to think clearly about tipping points, from permafrost to ice sheets

🌊 What we know, and do not know, about AMOC slowdown and Arctic feedbacks

🛠️ Why solar radiation management remains controversial, risky, and unresolved

💨 Why geoengineering cannot replace emissions cuts

🪨 Which carbon removal pathways seem most promising today

💸 Why carbon removal is likely to matter, even if it stays expensive

⚡ Why solving climate change will require many tools rather than one master fix

👩‍🏫 Guest Bio

Zeke Hausfather is a climate scientist and climate research lead at Stripe. He writes for Carbon Brief, publishes the The Climate Brink Substack, and has served as a lead author for the IPCC. His work focuses on observed warming, climate model performance, carbon removal, and the intersection of climate science and policy.

📚 Recommended Reading & Resources

The Climate Brink by Zeke Hausfather

Zeke Hausfather’s work for Carbon Brief

IPCC reports on 1.5°C, mitigation, and carbon removal

Frontier and Stripe’s work on carbon dioxide removal

Research on aerosols, shipping emissions, and recent warming trends

Research on solar radiation management and carbon removal technologies

💬 Quote Highlights

💬 “Our best estimate removing sort of natural variability is that the current rate of warming due to human activity is somewhere in the order of 0.27C.”

— Zeke Hausfather

💬 “If you were to get rid of sulfur dioxide emissions completely... you would end up at about two degrees of warming rather than the 1.5 or 1.4 we’re at today.”

— Zeke Hausfather

💬 “Getting to net zero emissions of all greenhouse gases and aerosols would lead to roughly flat temperatures.”

— Zeke Hausfather

💬 “All of these geoengineering approaches we’re talking about... are literally that.”

— Zeke Hausfather

💬 “There’s no silver bullet, but there’s silver buckshot when it comes to climate change.”

— Zeke Hausfather

🌐 About WePlanet

WePlanet is an international movement campaigning for science-based solutions to the climate, nature and development crises. Through conversations like this one, we challenge bad ideas, test assumptions, and make the case for a more abundant, resilient and hopeful future.

📥 Join the Conversation

💬 Email: podcast@weplanet.org

📩 Subscribe: weplanet.org/podcast

👁️ Follow: @weplanetint

Are vaccines overrated?

In this episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas speaks with Dr Seth Berkley, infectious disease epidemiologist, former CEO of Gavi, and co-founder of COVAX, about what the world got right and wrong during COVID-19.

They discuss vaccine equity, pandemic preparedness, the politicisation of public health, and why the world remains dangerously vulnerable to future outbreaks. From the rapid development of mRNA vaccines to the rise of vaccine disinformation and the growing threat of H5N1 bird flu, this conversation is a sobering reminder that pandemics do not end just because societies stop wanting to talk about them.

🧠 Topics Discussed

• 🦠 Why societies so quickly try to forget pandemics, even when the threat has not fully passed

• 🔬 Whether the origin of COVID matters for future policy and lab safety

• 💉 How quickly the world developed COVID vaccines, and why that scientific achievement was extraordinary

• 🌍 Why COVAX was created, how it worked, and what it achieved

• 📦 The scale of vaccine nationalism and the human cost of hoarding

• ⚗️ How mRNA vaccines changed the speed and future of vaccine development

• 🧬 Why HIV remains one of the hardest viruses to vaccinate against

• 🐦 The pandemic potential of H5N1 bird flu and why it deserves more attention

• 📱 How social media, political polarisation, and public-health messaging failures fuelled vaccine hesitancy

• 🏛️ Why attacks on institutions such as WHO, CDC, and public science undermine future pandemic response

• 🚨 Why measles is resurging in countries that had once controlled it

• 🤝 Why global cooperation, advance funding, and trusted scientific institutions remain essential

👩‍🏫 Guest Bio

Dr Seth Berkley is an infectious disease epidemiologist and Adjunct Professor at the Pandemic Center at Brown University. He served as CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, from 2011 to 2023, and was one of the co-founders of COVAX, the global effort to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. He previously led the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and has spent decades working at the intersection of global health, vaccine access, and epidemic preparedness. He is the author of Fair Doses: An Insider’s Story of the Pandemic and the Global Fight for Vaccine Equity.

📚 Recommended Reading & Resources

• Fair Doses: An Insider’s Story of the Pandemic and the Global Fight for Vaccine Equity by Dr Seth Berkley

• Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

• COVAX

• CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations)

• WHO Pandemic Accord / pandemic treaty process

• IAVI (International AIDS Vaccine Initiative)

💬 Quote Highlights

💬 “Vaccines are the most powerful public health technology [and] have led to the 40 year increase in life expectancy.” — Dr Seth Berkley

💬 “COVID isn’t over. We could have worse strains… and we need to learn the lessons from the previous one so we’re better prepared for the future one.” — Dr Seth Berkley

💬 “H5N1 is a really scary virus.” — Dr Seth Berkley

💬 “Outbreaks are inevitable, but pandemics are optional.” — Larry Brilliant, quoted by Dr Seth Berkley

💬 “The only thing that can protect us in a pandemic is science.” — Dr Seth Berkley

🌐 About WePlanet

WePlanet is a growing international movement campaigning for science-based solutions to the climate, nature and development crises. Through this podcast and beyond, we challenge bad ideas that stand in the way of progress, and make the case for a more abundant, resilient and hopeful future.

What lessons should the world have learned from COVID-19, and are we any better prepared for the next pandemic?

Let us know what you think, and share this episode with someone interested in vaccines, global health, and the future of pandemic preparedness.

Follow Saving the World from Bad Ideas for more conversations with scientists, writers and thinkers challenging the dogmas holding us back.

📥 Join the Conversation

💬 Email: podcast@weplanet.org📩 Subscribe: weplanet.org/podcast👁️ Follow: @weplanetint