Preliminary Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Part One: The Big Questions 11
1 Isn’t it too late? Aren’t we heading for a warmer world? 13
2 Is there enough public support to tackle climate change? 19
3 Isn’t climate action too polarised and politically divisive to fix? 23
4 My country only emits 1% of the world’s emissions; surely it’s too small to make a difference? 26
5 Aren’t our efforts pointless if China’s emissions keep growing? 30
Part Two: Fossil Fuels 35
6 Don’t poor countries need fossil fuels to develop? 37
7 Can’t we just keep burning fossil fuels and capture the CO2? 43
8 Can we transition to clean energy fast enough? 47
9 Are we even transitioning to clean energy if we keep adding more fossil fuels? 51
10 Will we even be able to produce enough clean energy to replace fossil fuels? 56
11 Won’t we need fossil fuels to build low-carbon energy in the first place? 61
12. Won’t we need more fossil fuels to keep up with artificial intelligence? 64
13 Won’t a lot of energy workers lose their jobs? 71
Part Three: Renewable Energy 77
14 Don’t solar and wind emit lots of carbon when we include the materials to build them? 79
15 What happens when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow? 82
16 Aren’t renewables too expensive? 86
17 Don’t solar panels and wind turbines generate huge amounts of waste? 92
18 Won’t we run out of land to use for solar panels and wind turbines? 97
19 Can we build electricity grids fast enough? 102
20 Don’t wind farms kill lots of birds and wildlife? 106
Part Four: Nuclear power 111
21 Isn’t nuclear power dangerous? 113
22 Doesn’t it take too long to build a nuclear plant? 118
23 Isn’t nuclear power too expensive? 122
24 What about radioactive waste? 126
Part Five: Electric Cars 131
25 Aren’t electric cars just as bad for the climate as petrol cars? 133
26 Don’t electric cars also contribute to air pollution? 138
27 Aren’t electric cars too expensive for the average drive? 142
28 Aren’t electric cars only good for shorter journeys? 146
29 Aren’t there too few charging points? 150
30 Won’t electric car charging break our electricity grids? 154
31 Don’t electric cars struggle in the cold? 158
32 Don’t electric cars catch fire all the time? 161
Part Six: Minerals 165
33 Won’t the world run out of minerals? 167
34 Won’t renewables and electric cars mean a lot more mining? 171
35 What about human exploitation in mineral supply chains? 176
36 Won’t we become dependent on a few countries, just like we did with fossil fuels? 181
37 Doesn’t mining minerals for clean energy use too much water to be sustainable? 186
Part Seven: Heating (and Cooling) 191
38 Aren’t heat pumps hopeless in the cold? 193
39 Aren’t heat pumps much more expensive than a gas boiler? 196
40 How can the world deal with the increasing demands for air conditioning? 200
Part Eight: Food 205
41 Surely we don’t have enough land for everyone to go plant-based? 207
42 Aren’t meat substitutes worse for the climate than meat because they use so much energy? 211
43 How can people switch when meat substitutes cost more than meat? 215
44 Meat substitutes are ‘ultra- processed’; doesn’t that make them unhealthy? 220
Part Nine: Cement, Steel and Other ‘Hard- to- Abate’ Industries 225
45 Will we ever be able to produce low- carbon cement? 227
46 What about low- carbon steel? 232
47 Is there any hope of low-carbon aviation and shipping? 236
Part Ten: Carbon Removal and Solar Geoengineering 241
48 Can we solve climate change without carbon dioxide removal? 243
49 Isn’t carbon dioxide removal too expensive? 246
50 Isn’t solar geoengineering too risky? 249
