Sunday Pick: Tech Solutions (#3): How one of China's biggest tech companies is tackling carbon removal (with Xu Hao)
Host Sherelle Dorsey talks with Dr. Xu Hao, Vice President of Sustainable Social Value at Tencent, about how the company is investing in and accelerating carbon removal and decarbonization technologies, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors like steel, cement, and chemicals. They examine the cost and scaling challenges these technologies face, the role of digital tools such as AI, data, and virtual power plants in improving efficiency and cutting emissions, and Tencent's own path toward carbon neutrality and net zero. The conversation also covers Tencent's use of video games for climate education and the need to pursue multiple climate solutions in the face of uncertainty about which technologies will ultimately dominate.
4 hard truths about capitalism and climate | Steve Howard
Sustainability investor Steve Howard outlines four hard truths about capitalism and climate change, arguing that businesses, financial markets, and policies must be rewired to enable large-scale decarbonization. He explains how companies are structurally resistant to change, how short-term profit focus and unpriced environmental externalities distort markets, and why long, loud, legal climate policies are essential to drive investment into cleaner technologies. Drawing on examples from Temasek, IKEA, Singapore, and emerging climate-tech firms, he shows how better (cleaner, cheaper, higher-performing) solutions can scale quickly and calls on policymakers, asset owners, businesses, and individuals to actively redirect capital toward climate solutions.
How climate shocks could break the economy | Edmond Rhys Jones
Host Elise Hu introduces a TED talk by climate pathfinder Edmund Rhys-Jones, who explores the economic implications of climate change. Rhys-Jones argues that while climate science is detailed and alarming, traditional economic models understate real-world disruption because they ignore how climate shocks propagate through financial infrastructure. He calls for new, complexity-based simulations and financial innovations to better manage growing climate-related turbulence and safeguard a significant share of global GDP.
Sunday Pick: Tech Solutions (#1): The affordable tech that will revolutionize farming (with Samir Ibrahim and Josephine Waweru)
This episode of TED Tech, part of a special mini-series recorded at the TED Countdown Climate Summit in Nairobi, explores how affordable solar-powered water pumps are transforming smallholder farming. Host Cheryl Dorsey speaks with Sun Culture CEO Samir Ibrahim about building a farmer-centered business that has driven down the cost of solar irrigation through both engineering and business model innovation, while navigating investors and climate-related priorities. Coffee farmer Josephine Waweru then shares how installing a solar pump on her Kenyan farm solved her water challenges, enabled her to expand her crops and income, and inspired her to encourage other farmers and young people to see farming as a viable, growth-oriented business.
How to pull the emergency brake on global warming | Mohamed A. Sultan
Host Elise Hu introduces a TED Talk by sustainability strategist Mohamed A. Sultan about the urgency and opportunity of cutting methane emissions, especially across the African continent. Sultan explains how methane from landfills, fossil fuels, and agriculture significantly drives global warming, and highlights concrete African examples in waste management, energy, and rice cultivation that reduce methane while improving public health, jobs, and food security. He argues that better governance, finance, and development models can simultaneously build resilience, advance economic development, and lower methane emissions worldwide.
Tax the rich - and save the planet | Esther Duflo
Host Elise Hu introduces a TED Talk by economist Esther Duflo, who argues that the world's richest individuals and largest multinational corporations should fund climate damage costs through targeted taxes. Duflo quantifies the mortality and financial burden that greenhouse gas emissions from rich countries impose on low- and middle-income countries and proposes a global wealth and corporate tax to raise around $1.7 trillion annually. She advocates sending this money directly to people, especially in poorer nations, to build resilience and create a new grand bargain where rich countries pay climate damages and poorer countries commit to strong climate action.
Sunday Pick: How Texas became America's biggest producer of wind energy | Speed & Scale
Hosts Ryan Pinchasarum and Anjali Grover tell the story of how Texas, long associated with oil and gas, became the largest producer of wind energy in the United States. Through an interview with former Texas Public Utility Commission chair Pat Wood, they trace how public input, bipartisan policymaking, and major transmission investments enabled large-scale wind deployment and cut power-sector emissions by over a quarter, despite growing political polarization around renewables.
Inside India's astonishing solar revolution | Kanika Chawla
Energy expert Kanika Chawla explains how India transformed an audacious 2014 commitment to install 100 gigawatts of solar power into reality, reaching the goal by February 2025 and unlocking $90 billion in investment and 300,000 new solar jobs. She argues that India's success was driven less by ideology and more by economic logic, backed by innovations in business models, market design, and planning. Drawing on examples from India, Ghana, sub-Saharan Africa, and Kenya, she outlines how planning, innovation, and localization can help developing countries lead an irreversible global energy transition.
How we took on an oil giant - and won | Melinda Janki
Climate justice litigator Melinda Janke explains how she uses existing environmental and liability laws in Guyana to challenge ExxonMobil's massive offshore oil projects. She details several landmark legal victories that restricted permit durations, forced inclusion of global "scope three" emissions in impact assessments, and imposed unlimited liability backed by a parent company guarantee. The talk emphasizes that law is a powerful tool ordinary people can use to hold fossil fuel companies accountable and that the oil industry is more vulnerable than it appears.