State of climate change despair & new denials + Climate FAQs
In Hockley County, 67% people deny climate change. So do 23% US congress members. There's a real chance that US may gut the Paris Agreement & IRA. Worried? Here are our takeaways & the Climate FAQs.
Hi there,
Hope the August melancholy hasn’t taken you over, and the spirits remain high.
We’re writing this issue of Impetus after a rather long break. As you might know, in the intervening period, we’ve decided to sharpen Momentum Capital’s focus on climate tech investments as one key theme of our current debut fund.
While the share of global climate tech investments in total VC funding has grown, relatively less investment goes into those sectors that generate the biggest shares of global emissions. Our aim is not just to bring more investment in climate, but to play a part in rebalancing the disproportionate investment going into a few climate tech sectors, and you’ll see that reflected in our portfolio. And we’ll talk about our portfolio investments in subsequent issues.
Climate change despair and new denials
Now, fighting the climate crisis needs a cohesive partnership & understanding by all stakeholders, including innovators, investors, government, and especially the people. However, alarming recent statistics say that 15% of Americans deny that climate change is real. Further, actually only 46% of American adults believe climate change is real & human-made.
More alarming is that the belief in climate change can vary substantially in pockets. E.g. climate change denial rates were as high as 52% in California’s Shasta County, and were an astonishing 67% in Hockley County, Texas. In the wake of enormous scientific evidence for climate change, this weakness in public perception is worrying.
On the lawmakers side, a significant 23% of current US Congress members can be called climate deniers. And depending on the US election results, there’s a real risk of the US leaving the Paris Agreement for good and gutting the Inflation Reduction Act.
Moreover, while gen Z is burdened most with climate anxiety, a third of UK teenagers believe climate change is exaggerated. While the study is controversial, what troubles us most as innovation investors is the rapidly rising share of new themes in the climate denial discourse - that climate solutions don’t work and the climate movement is unreliable.
Why is that troublesome? Because they reflect that climate innovation isn’t delivering or moving at the pace the public wants, and there’s growing despair among even the groups most likely to stand for climate action. Is the apocalyptic framing of the climate crisis by organizations like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion just a reaction of this hopelessness, or a distraction & impediment to real climate work, or in some contrarian way a masterstroke of radical flank effect?
We’ll probably know with time.
Our takeaways & releasing Climate FAQs
But what are our current takeaways as venture investors from all this ?
First, we need to continue increasing investment in newer climate innovations to reduce the cost of transition, shorten the curve and bring more belief in climate solutions. If the current climate innovations aren’t convincing enough, we crumple them in our hand, and invent one. And we need to continue attracting more stakeholders in the fold - LPs, entrepreneurs, customers, talent.
Second, despite all the scientific evidence readily available, we too need to play a part in reinforcing the science behind climate change in this age of (arguably) engineered social media echo chambers. We have to engage in more conversations and make access to relevant information easier, as well as drive (at least some) agnostics out of their inertia into Momentum (hah!). Some of us were there not long ago ourselves.
And while Momentum Capital’s core work focuses on the first aspect, through this newsletter issue we're glad to release our recent work on the second. To reinforce the climate crisis, we’ve collated key knowledge resources on the basics of climate change science, as well as put together answers to most climate change myths & denials. The idea is for it to not reinvent the wheel, but to be a simple live document & quick directory of the best knowledge out there.
Give v1.0 a read here: Climate FAQs: Understanding our climate, global action & answering climate change myths.
We discuss worst case scenarios, emitters, responsibility, carbon budget, etc., as well as explain why scientists believe climate change is real, not good, not natural, and is a here & now problem. It’s a pretty good start, in our opinion. If you have any feedback or comments, or topic & resource suggestions, do ping us.
If you’re already well-versed with all the information there, share it with someone who may not be.
Quick Poll
Given the stats above, it would be interesting to do a pulse check about climate change with our readers. Please take a second to respond:
We’ll share the results in a following issue of this newsletter.
Based on the information above and your answer to the poll, what are your current takeaways from all of it? Is climate action going to be a part of your professional career?
Hiring alert
We are expanding Momentum Capital’s team and looking for a strong, passionate & self-starter Investment Associate. While we’ve had a deluge of applications already, here is the post with the role details and an application link in case you know a superstar.
Let’s talk
And as always, if you or anyone you know is working on any promising climate tech solution (especially India or US), or want to work in climate tech, give us a shout. We’d love to hear from you.
~ Ankur & Bharti
Linkedin: Momentum Capital | Ankur Shrivastava | Bharti Singhla
X: Momentum Capital | Ankur Shrivastava | Bharti Singhla
Website: Momentum Capital | Portfolio | Climate FAQs