The Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR)'s CEO Rick Parnell joins us from the United Nations to tell us about their First Annual Global Climate Restoration Forum, and the creation of their Global Coalition for Climate Restoration. They're raising the profile of carbon removal and trying to foster scalable climate solutions with decisionmakers.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom. I’m Ross Kenyon, lead strategist with the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today I have with me Rick Parnell, the Foundation for Climate Restoration CEO. Thanks for being here, Rick.
Rick Parnell: Thanks for having me. And hello from United Nations General Assembly and the Climate Summit.
Ross Kenyon: You just had to brag. Had to let everyone know, Rick. That’s cool. Probably one of the more exotic locales that someone has transmitted to us for this show. Well, we saw a press release come out and it’s been bandied about through our channels that there is a new Coalition for Climate Restoration was just launched. What exactly is this about, Rick? What are you hoping to achieve? Who are you working with? Give me that rundown that I’m after.
Rick Parnell: Sure. So we launched the Global Coalition for Climate Restoration at the UN on September 17th. This was the first annual global forum for climate restoration. And this was the idea of being able to bring the message of restoration carbon removal in addition to mitigation adaptation. But as our good friend and partner Kathleen Rogers, Earth Day Network likes to say, this is the third leg of the stool. So this was a chance to bring a lot of different people together. It was at the trusteeship council at the U. S. And for those who are not familiar with the UN, this is the second largest room.
So we had 700 people register, which we were just absolutely thrilled to register to talk about climate restoration. So what it did was it brought together We had Tom Baruch, who is one of the original venture capitalists out of Silicon Valley. He is funding a lot of different companies to do things like direct capture, turning air into water. He and other kinds of things like that. We had Earth Day Network spoke about their belief and support for climate restoration. We had Katie Edler was our keynote. She brought down the house.
She is the youth who’s been running the strikes, one of the partners on the strikes in the US over the last couple of years.
Ross Kenyon: She’s a veteran of this show too. I had her on a few months ago.
Rick Parnell: Absolutely phenomenal. She’s so impressive. Incredible. We had the Vatican spoke on, I’ll call it the moral imperative of climate restoration, the idea that we have to restore the climate to ensure the future of humanity, the very survival of the species. And then we had movement builders, we had artists, we had poets, we had a new concrete company that’s come online over the last year in San Francisco that actually builds concrete by removing carbon from the air. So it’s actually carbon negative concrete. Very exciting. Lots of potential there. So we just had just a very different mix.
We had women and the role of women’s movement and climate. So this was a pretty broad mix. What we did with the coalition was that we took advantage of the forums away to law. The Coalition for Climate Restoration, the idea is that whether it is companies, it’s individuals, it’s movement builders, organizations, nonprofits, we can all come together and talk about climate restoration and support for climate restoration and the idea that we have to get ourselves back to 300 parts per million. This is our mission, 300 parts per million by the year 2050.
It’s an unbelievably ambitious goal, but our founder, Peter Fikowski, who I think you know, Peter Fikowski is a physicist, an entrepreneur from Silicon Valley. And after years of research and conversations, what he came back to is that humanity has survived and thrived for thousands of years at less than 300 parts per million. And only in the last few decades have we crossed 400 parts per million, 415, some say 450 and climbing. So our goal is to get the climate back to under 300 parts per million by the year 2050.
Ross Kenyon: That is ambitious. And yes, Peter Fikowski is a friend. He’s a reversing climate change podcast alumnus. And yeah, we should talk, Peter. It’s been too long. We’ll have to get in touch with you here and are happy with what you’re doing. I like that. There’s something that’s optimistic about it, curative, restorative. Yeah, I enjoy it. So, Rick, where exactly does carbon removal or negative emissions technology, where does it fit inside of climate restoration? I’m kind of padding this a little bit because, you know, getting down to that level obviously requires this to some extent.
Rick Parnell: Right. So the three areas that we’re focused on, and I want to purposely say not working in because we don’t run programs. We’re trying to identify and lift up technologies, programs, initiatives that are focused on our term climate restoration. So I would call it essentially a third of what we’re doing. The other two-thirds are, how do we restore the oceans to healthy and healthy fisheries? And the question of ice, probably the most critical question right now. We had an organization, Ice 911, you probably know less But working on some Arctic ice restoration solutions.
So we talked a little bit about that. But carbon removal, I think has the fastest potential because it is some technology. That is now online. So let me go back to the concrete company Blue Planet in San Francisco. I believe it’s Southwest Wing. It’s one of the new terminals at San Francisco Airport was actually used as concrete in its construction. And it’s already been tested for strength and for durability. It’s lightweight. So it’s meeting the tests. So we think that there’s a lot of potential here. But more importantly, we think that one of our partners is the XPRIZE, for example.
And one of the things that we’ve been talking about, the XPRIZE, is that as they identify... Solutions and their new $100 million prize for carbon removal technology that they will be launching next year. Let’s all work together on making sure that these technologies are lifted up and that people know that they can use them. I’m a believer and I have... We run into so many people, whether it’s corporate CEO leadership, boardrooms, that they just don’t know that a lot of these things are out there and that they want to do the right thing.
Not every company, but there’s a lot of organizations that would like to do the right thing, but the choices have not put it in front of them. So that’s one of the things that we’re trying to do is to try and quickly ramp up and showcase, highlight so that the technology can be taken to scale quickly.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, one of the criticisms of carbon removal that’s pretty common, and I’ve been reading David Wallace-Wells’ The Uninhabitable Earth, and there’s this constant fear that carbon removal tech just will not scale. It’s sort of this techno-fix, too Pollyanna approach to people who are techno-optimists. It’s just not going to happen, basically. It’s not going to get there in time. But of course, it’s definitely not going to get there in time if we aren’t doing stuff like this and trying to grow it as fast as possible. And also, it doesn’t even seem like we have a choice.
If we don’t do carbon removal, even if we cut emissions, we’re already in the danger zone. So I’m not sure why be so negative about it. We have no choice but to boost carbon removal.
Rick Parnell: I think we absolutely have to. I mean, the IPCC report from the fall of last year said, essentially, try everything. It’s too late. We have to. We cannot wait for science to be proven, tested. We have to do it safely, of course. We need protocols. We need to have governance. But we can’t sit and wait for things to be tested over multiple years and then potentially implemented. And can we find funding? We just have to get on with it. As Peter likes to say, Humanity has been doing... I hate the term geoengineering.
I think it’s incredibly loaded. But if you want to call it geoengineering, we’ve been doing it for two centuries, and that’s how we got to where we are today. Why wouldn’t we try and take the technologies that we have, try and increase them, invest in them, and bring them online so that we can restore the climate and reverse the damage that humanity has done? I’m a huge believer that if you leave people in a position where you tell them, That they’re doomed and the end is near and don’t give them the ability to try and fix what’s happened, then people become paralyzed and they don’t know what to do.
I’m not saying this is a Pollyanna message or that we have all the solutions. That mitigation, adaptation are absolutely critical. Renewables are here to stay and only growing. As Tom Baruch said at our forum, there is somewhere between a $1. 5 and a $10 trillion annual opportunity in this new transportation and energy transfer. Someone will get this right. And so we should all be promoting and helping foster these kinds of for-profit solutions that can scale. So I absolutely believe this is what we have to do.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think you are hewing to exactly the correct line on that. And that’s a big part of what we try to do with these shows too, both this and reversing climate change is we spend a lot of time speaking with entrepreneurs where, you know, a lot of them are pretty small startups now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if within our guests, there were a couple of people who are as familiar to audiences as Richard Branson or Bill Gates 10 years down the line. I think there’s a lot of money and a lot of businesses to be built out of carbon removal.
And the world is starting to see this potential too. And in no small part due to things like what you’re doing. And I’m really happy that you’re trying to get this out to a bigger audience, especially, you know, carbon removal sometimes gets lumped in with high tech VC entrepreneurial Silicon Valley sort of scene. But that’s a very different scene from the UN, right? Being at the United Nations is a really big deal and an entirely different audience. It may be Not mainstream in a pejorative sense, but it is sort of where much of policy is decided and having an influence at that level, I think is really key in an audience that hasn’t been properly reached by carbon removal aficionados.
Rick Parnell: Yeah, I mean, I’ll say two things about the UN. I worked for Ted Turner for almost 20 years. And as Ted used to say, if it wasn’t for the UN, we would have had World War III. The UN is the place to go and have these kinds of conversations. And the reason that we wanted to kick off our conversation I think it’s important to have a coalition and have the forum at the UN is there is no greater place to have world attention on the fact that climate restoration needs a place at the table.
World leaders have come together. There’s a lot of movement on mitigation and adaptation. It’s time for us to move in. It’s interesting when you think about being here during this week, back in 1945, that nations were finishing a world war, implementing a Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and start launching the United Nations. So I think it’s another testament to humanity that when we decide, we can do it all. We just have to decide we want to get it done. And I just want to say there was a young person. We had some youth come in from Chicago to attend.
These are 15, 16, 17-year-old students from the greater Chicago area. The next day after the forum, we had a closed-door brainstorming session with all the different partners about working over the next year and how do we want the forum to develop and the coalition so that when we’re here for the second annual, And she said to me, I said to the group, we asked for anybody that had thoughts, and she said to the group, I came into this thinking I had no future and that I would not have children and that my future was doomed.
She said, I’ve had a 180 experience and I’m going home to tell other youth, we can do this. There is a future for humanity. We just have to decide we want to do it.
Ross Kenyon: That’s good. It’s nice to hear Hope. I’ve seen both the very well attended, well listened to Greta Thunberg speech, I assume at the same event or a neighboring event that happened yesterday. But I think there’s a lot of information. I can’t imagine being a kid, I guess. It’s scary as a 31-year-old, but I can’t imagine being 16. Seems like not a lot of hope. So I’m happy to hear that at least people are getting inspired there, or at least they’re not so beat down by the threats that they’re unable to move or exercise any agency whatsoever.
Rick Parnell: Absolutely. I mean, these were not the things I was thinking about when I was 14, 15, 16 years old. So these are incredible youth.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I was mostly writing bad poetry and doing that whole scene. So a little different. Well, thanks so much, Rick. Thanks for being here. If someone wanted to follow your work and keep in touch, if they know a business that should maybe be a part of what you’re passing around and representing, what’s a good way for someone to get in touch with you?
Rick Parnell: So I would ask everyone to join the Coalition for Climate Restoration. That’s at F4CR.org. You can join the coalition. We’ll keep you updated. You can learn more. And to people that have solutions, we want to hear from them because I truly believe there are a lot of solutions out there that have not seen the light of day. And so we are encouraging people to step forward and tell us about some of the solutions they have. So hopefully we can showcase them and help lift them up.
Ross Kenyon: It’s a great opportunity if you’re listening and you’re working on carbon removal. If you have an idea that you’re maybe not a full business yet or full organization, but you’re working, there’s resources out there for you and people want to help create this nascent industry and they’re here to help. So definitely do that. We will be looking into this too for Nori. Thanks so much for being here with us, Rick.
Rick Parnell: Thank you so much.
Ross Kenyon: If you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes or Apple Podcasts, Stitcher. Let your friends know. If you know entrepreneurs working in carbon removal or you yourself are one of them, take advantage of these resources. Try and get plugged in. There’s a community of support. If you would like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast. nori.com. I’ve steered people towards certain resources when they’re developing businesses and I’m happy to do so for you as well. And thank you so much for listening.
