Solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of power, and renewables make up the overwhelmingly majority of new energy in the U.S. and abroad, despite ongoing attacks from the Trump administration.
But much more still needs to be done to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
RMI is a “think and do tank” facilitating climate solutions around the world. Founded in Old Snowmass in 1982, the nonprofit provides analysis on how companies or governments can embrace clean energy, and it helps implement those strategies.
In India, for example, the organization is working to electrify public transportation and millions of small delivery vehicles — saving money on fuel while improving air quality.
Aspen Public Radio’s Michael Fanelli visited RMI’s Innovation Center in Basalt last month to talk with CEO Jon Creyts, who was recently recognized as a Forbes Sustainability Leader.
The conversation below has been edited for clarity and length.
Michael Fanelli: I saw your session at the Mountain Towns Summit that you moderated with the utilities. Generally speaking, how would you assess the state of local climate progress?
Jon Creyts: I think local climate progress has been really gaining traction here, especially in mountain towns. And some of the most innovative practices are being done by the smaller utilities that sit in mountain towns, [for example those] that are figuring out ways to place batteries within their systems for resiliency.
MF: Bryan Hannegan, the CEO of Holy Cross [Energy], ended [that conversation] by essentially saying, “We're doing great innovations in the realm of electricity. It's kind of up to the rest of you to make the climate progress in other sectors.” So I'm curious what you see as some areas of potential improvement.
JC: I would say methane leakage — super important. You know, this has been historically a fossil fuel-producing region, and we do have methane coming out from coal mines, as well as leakage from some of the natural gas that we're taking out of unconventional sources here.
So it makes sense for us to save that and minimize it. And RMI has done quite a bit of work to highlight how and where we can do that cost-effectively, and in the process, minimize the amount of temperature increase that we see from our ongoing use of fossil fuels here.
MF: I know you were at COP30 recently, and I'm sure you're constantly in touch with people who are working on renewables and more climate-friendly systems. What are you hearing from those people who are doing that work? What is the general sentiment around this space right now?
JC: One of my key takeaways from COP30 is that the rest of the world isn't waiting right now. There are significant motivations for pursuing a clean, affordable, resilient energy future that are really propelling countries like Brazil, like India, like Australia, like Morocco, and I can go down a list.
Roughly 80% of the world looks at clean energy and says, “This is what we need. This is what the most affordable solution is, and we need to supercharge and drive as quickly as we can toward that future.”
That is a very different narrative than what we hear here in the United States. So it's important for us to recognize that the world is moving at different speeds in different directions.
MF: In order to address the climate crisis, do you feel that substantial innovation is still needed, or that we generally have the technology that we need, it's just a matter of implementation now?
JC: When we look at where we are overall with solving climate change, we have significant amounts of technology available to cover roughly 70% of the problem or the challenge, and to do that cost-effectively.
There is stuff that we still need to solve for, and especially in heavy industry. We don't have good, affordable answers for things like steel or cement. We don't have good, affordable answers for the chemicals industry, etc., where constant innovation is required.
Now that said, innovation is a powerful way for us to get further, faster as well. And as those technological innovations come forward, it creates a more exciting future for us all to engage with.
We look and see now what we can do with batteries and vehicles, and that's exciting. Well, it's not going to be very long until you're buying your HVAC system with a backup battery system associated with it. So you don't have to worry when the grid goes down, about actually staying warm or cold, depending on what season we're in.
MF: One more big picture question for you: What do you see as the greatest challenge to addressing climate change?
JC: The greatest challenge to addressing climate change isn't about the technology, and it's not about the economics anymore, either. We have affordable solutions.
It’s about us, right? It's about people. It's about how do we work together to scale and overcome some of the barriers and overcome some of the preconceptions, and ultimately align, for whatever reason?
And the more that we recognize that, from whatever our individual motivations are, these are the answers that make sense, the less we'll worry about some of the concerns with what others think, or the politics of the moment.
