https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/438426-climate-change-rae-kwon-chung/
With more violent hurricanes and scorching heat waves advancing, can we really get our act together and do something about climate change? We [Sophie Shevardnadze] talked to Rae Kwon Chung, Nobel Peace Prize winner as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change and a Global Energy Prize International Award Committee member.
Sophie Shevardnadze: Mr. Chung, thank you very much for being with us today. It’s a great pleasure. Lots to talk about. I want to start with climate change. It’s such a huge topic and people are divided on it. For instance, this summer, the world went through another breaking heatwave records. And each summer in Europe it seems to get worse and worse. Is this climate change in action? Is this what it looks like?
Rae Kwon Chung: I have been following the climate change issues for more than twenty years. And we have been giving the warning from 1990s that the climate change will be coming. But now I say that it has already arrived. This year in Seoul it was about 40 degrees. We never experienced this kind of heatwave. But it’s not only in Korea. Even Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, but also Greece, Portugal and even the United States are suffering from terrible draught as well as wildfires. Now I think, the Earth is really showing its anger and fury to the world that they are really getting serious climate change. So it is only the beginning of the new risk of the climate crisis.
R-KC: I’m taking a different approach. Just arguing that climate crisis is coming is not enough. The basic reason why these people are not taking any action for climate change is because, for example, the reduction of CO2 emissions is going to damage the economic growth and jobs and my money. That’s why they are not taking real actions. I’m trying to say that in reality if we take action for CO2 reduction like energy efficiency, the renewal energy, it will actually generate more money, more jobs and even higher economic growth. So I want to change the storyline that climate action is not bad for economic growth or your money, but climate change will be beneficial, good, positive, making money for you. That’s the kind of story.
SS: Let’s talk electric “supergrids”. This will actually allow power to be transferred far and with minimal losses. For instance, places like Mongolia with lots of space and sun and wind will transfer energy to China. Could that be an answer to coal - something we still heavily rely on?
R-KC: I think, it is a very important technological breakthrough. Because as you know, the renewable energy like solar and wind, they have certain limitations. Countries like South Korea or Japan - we don’t have enough land space to install enough solar panels. So linking those remote areas like Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, and also Kazakhstan I’m promoting the idea of the Silk Road supergrid of installing huge scale of solar and wind farms in Kazakhstan, and linking all those countries along the Silk Road and exporting and sharing renewable energy. I think, this will be a game changer, the quantum jump of generation in renewable energy because now we have incremental change of renewable energy growing. But the speed is not enough at all. The speed we want has to be like 30-40% every year, but now it’s only 6-7%. That’s not enough to meet the target. So to make a quantum jump in renewable energy we need this kind of technological breakthrough like supergrids.
Read the entire interview on: https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/438426-climate-change-rae-kwon-chung/
With more violent hurricanes and scorching heat waves advancing, can we really get our act together and do something about climate change? We [Sophie Shevardnadze] talked to Rae Kwon Chung, Nobel Peace Prize winner as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change and a Global Energy Prize International Award Committee member.
Sophie Shevardnadze: Mr. Chung, thank you very much for being with us today. It’s a great pleasure. Lots to talk about. I want to start with climate change. It’s such a huge topic and people are divided on it. For instance, this summer, the world went through another breaking heatwave records. And each summer in Europe it seems to get worse and worse. Is this climate change in action? Is this what it looks like?
Rae Kwon Chung: I have been following the climate change issues for more than twenty years. And we have been giving the warning from 1990s that the climate change will be coming. But now I say that it has already arrived. This year in Seoul it was about 40 degrees. We never experienced this kind of heatwave. But it’s not only in Korea. Even Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, but also Greece, Portugal and even the United States are suffering from terrible draught as well as wildfires. Now I think, the Earth is really showing its anger and fury to the world that they are really getting serious climate change. So it is only the beginning of the new risk of the climate crisis.
R-KC: I’m taking a different approach. Just arguing that climate crisis is coming is not enough. The basic reason why these people are not taking any action for climate change is because, for example, the reduction of CO2 emissions is going to damage the economic growth and jobs and my money. That’s why they are not taking real actions. I’m trying to say that in reality if we take action for CO2 reduction like energy efficiency, the renewal energy, it will actually generate more money, more jobs and even higher economic growth. So I want to change the storyline that climate action is not bad for economic growth or your money, but climate change will be beneficial, good, positive, making money for you. That’s the kind of story.
SS: Let’s talk electric “supergrids”. This will actually allow power to be transferred far and with minimal losses. For instance, places like Mongolia with lots of space and sun and wind will transfer energy to China. Could that be an answer to coal - something we still heavily rely on?
R-KC: I think, it is a very important technological breakthrough. Because as you know, the renewable energy like solar and wind, they have certain limitations. Countries like South Korea or Japan - we don’t have enough land space to install enough solar panels. So linking those remote areas like Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, and also Kazakhstan I’m promoting the idea of the Silk Road supergrid of installing huge scale of solar and wind farms in Kazakhstan, and linking all those countries along the Silk Road and exporting and sharing renewable energy. I think, this will be a game changer, the quantum jump of generation in renewable energy because now we have incremental change of renewable energy growing. But the speed is not enough at all. The speed we want has to be like 30-40% every year, but now it’s only 6-7%. That’s not enough to meet the target. So to make a quantum jump in renewable energy we need this kind of technological breakthrough like supergrids.
Read the entire interview on: https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/438426-climate-change-rae-kwon-chung/
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