BY RYAN FORTUNE
Earlier this week, I found myself at the Solar & Storage Live Conference in Cape Town, surrounded by passionate individuals eager to promote their latest solar panels, inverters and battery storage systems. The goal? To help homeowners, factories and rural communities break free from their reliance on fossil fuels.
Every time I attend such gatherings, I leave feeling a mix of hope and despair. While I know everyone there has good intentions, I can’t shake the feeling they're missing the bigger picture.
Sure, solar energy and battery storage are crucial to the renewable energy transition we desperately need, but even if we covered every rooftop and parking lot in the world with solar panels, it wouldn’t be enough to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. Why? Because the issue runs much deeper than just energy production.
It’s about our entire lifestyle. It’s about the systems that drive our economy – the extraction of fossil fuels, the relentless pursuit of growth and the destruction of our forests. These are the real culprits behind climate change, and they won’t be fixed by solar panels, inverters and batteries alone.
Think about it: people have been gathering to discuss climate change for more than 50 years. The first major international conference on the environment was in Stockholm back in 1972, the same year I was born. There've been countless meetings, from the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to the annual COP gatherings. At every gathering scientists have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the consequences of our collective actions.
Yet despite all this talk, what have we really done? We’ve invested billions in innovative solutions, but at the same time pouring billions more into the very industries that contribute to climate change. On the individual level, it's our daily choices – our cravings for fast fashion and the latest gadgets – that are at the heart of the problem. While the planet heats up, we remain caught in a cycle of consumption and distracted by political drama and celebrity gossip. It’s a confusing and contradictory situation that is a sure recipe for disaster.
Imagine you were a doctor with a patient who had cancer. Would you treat them with just a few painkillers? Of course not. You’d put them onto a holistic programme that included chemotherapy as well as immediate diet and lifestyle changes. The climate crisis is no different.
What would that look like? First, we must quickly phase out fossil fuels in every sector – not just electricity but also transportation, industry and agriculture. We need to protect our wild forests, which act as the lungs of our planet, from the predations of loggers and large-scale commercial farmers. And we must rethink our economic systems to prioritise sustainability and collective well-being over hyper-individualism and endless growth.
Investing in renewable energy and storage technologies is vital, but we also need to focus on energy efficiency and decentralised systems that empower communities. We should support innovative technologies like green hydrogen and long-duration energy storage.
Most importantly, we need to change how we think about the climate crisis. It’s not just a problem for engineers and entrepreneurs to solve. It’s a systemic issue that demands that we make profound shifts in our values and priorities.
We need to envision the world we want to live in and work together to create it. While I appreciate the earnest efforts of the solar and storage industry, I can’t help but feel that their focus is too narrow. We need to think bigger and bolder if we want to confront the climate crisis effectively. We should embrace nature-based solutions, support communities and challenge the status quo.
The reality is that time is running out. The climate crisis is here, and the consequences will only worsen if we don’t act now.
Let’s set aside our egos and short-term interests and come together to build the future we want. Let’s be bold and visionary, ready to do whatever it takes to protect our planet, even if it means making drastic changes to our ways of life.
Our great-great-grandchildren will thank us for it.
Ryan Fortune is the CEO, Ryan Fortune Communications. For more of his writing, visit: https://ryan-fortune.company.site/
Saturday Star