Shouldn’t our climate pledges be AWESOME?

Do you remember these old Oklahoma license plates? No big claims from the Sooner State. Not awesome. Not terrible. Just OK.

Honest, perhaps, but hardly marquee-worthy.

It reminded me of when I first started my career in technology commercialization. Back in 1995, I had the unique pleasure of working with dozens of former Soviet Union companies on their paths towards Western-style commercialization. My job was to interview Soviet executives to find out what, if anything, they had that could be of value to commercial partners: some technology, strategic relationships, access to sales channels, or unique financing opportunities. I would learn much later that talking about one’s strategic advantages was seen as bragging — and as such, was subject to undue scrutiny and harsh punishment from Moscow. The thinking was, well, if you have so much abundance then we should take it from you and give it to those less fortunate. In the Soviet Union you were penalized for standing out, so you were incentivized to be beige; that’s just the nature of Communism. I would spend hours interviewing Soviet CEOs about their unique value propositions, and their answers were universally bland:

“Our products are no worse than anybody else’s.”

Thud.

Honest, perhaps, but hardly marquee-worthy. Just like Oklahoma.

I find this message particular relevant today in our efforts to reverse climate change. Climate neutrality, decarbonization, zero emissions are all among the mantras we’re using to define our climate change goals these days. We have cities, states, and countries all standing up and committing to zero emissions by 2030 or 2050. But what does a commitment to zero emissions mean?

Think about it for a minute. Zero emissions means that we strive to eliminate the growth of the problem we’re creating. We are committing, quite literally, to not making things worse. We won’t make things better, we just promise to not make it worse. And we’re going to take 20 to 40 years to get there.

What kind of a commitment is that? That’s like Oklahoma’s license plate saying “Oklahoma wants to be OK, but for now we’re awful. But give us 30 years and we’ll be average.”

Imagine if you proposed to your partner with a promise: “Hey, I won’t make things worse for you for the rest of your life. Wanna get hitched?”

Or if the product you bought promised: “we guarantee that this will perform no better or no worse than anything else you buy.”

Or if the meal you just ordered was “about as tasty as milquetoast. But certainly not better.”

Or if President Kennedy said: “I hereby promise to have the Soviets beat us to the moon by no more than a decade.”

Wouldn’t you want them to try harder? So would I.

So why are we celebrating milquetoast climate neutral goals?

Why do we give a standing ovation to New York when they say they’re going to have carbon-free emissions by 2040? Would we give them the same applause if they instead said: “fellow New Yorkers, within 10 years we promise to not be worse than we are today! And it’ll only cost us billions! Aren’t we awesome?”

Woo-hoo.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. If the climate predictions are correct, we don’t have 30 years to be average. We have to be awesome. By yesterday.

Last month, Microsoft pledged to become carbon negative by 2030 and remove all their carbon emissions by 2050. Hell yes. That is an awesome goal. That’s them standing up and saying: “We commit to making things better and actually reversing global temperatures.” That isn’t mediocre. That’s fantastic.

Why aren’t we all doing this? Why is it OK for us to agree to not make things worse?

We need a new model. We need a commitment to making things better, to reversing global temperatures. We need to be saying this, and not applauding half-goals of climate neutrality. We need carbon negative. Today.

OK may be fine for license plates, but it’s awful for reversing climate change.