Speed and Scale: How Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr Wants to Fix the Climate Crisis

Doerr’s book is titled Speed and Scale. He knows something about both. As the former head of VC firm Kleiner Perkins, he made early investments in Google,

Amazon
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and other iconic companies. Set to be released next week, the book is Doerr’s action plan to get the world to net zero emissions by 2050, which means removing 59 gigatons of emissions from the environment. He spoke over the phone last week as preparations kicked off for the climate summit known as COP26, which is taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. This transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity. 

Barron’s: Tell us why you wrote a book about climate change.

John Doerr: We’re really on the verge of a catastrophic irreversible climate crisis. The evidence is all around us: devastating hurricanes, floods, heatwaves and wildfires. The hard reality is that what we’re doing is not enough, and so we need a clear course of action. I want to acknowledge that it’s not going to be easy. If we succeed at it, we’ll not only save the planet, but we will create the economic opportunity of a lifetime. I’m pretty shameless in wanting to get people to pay attention to this plan.

In the book there are few quotes and conversations with people like Bill Gates and Larry Fink. Which conversations stood out most?

One of them is with one of my former partners, Ryan Popple. He talks about his tour of duty in the Middle East and having to bury his best friend in a needless conflict over oil. That’s particularly poignant. And I think it’s vulnerable on his part to tell that story. That was not an easy one to tell.

I saw that you spoke to Jeff Bezos. Do you think an entity like Amazon can be a positive part of the climate solution?

Absolutely. I think the work that Amazon is doing on its own emissions is enormous. They’ve taken this climate pledge, which is to have by 2040 net zero emissions through their supply chain. I returned to a story with Jeff in the area of philanthropy because his commitment of $10 billion over just a decade to be given away to the most promising risky, ambitious, advocacy, and other deployment is the standard-setter. There’s no one who’s committed to do that much. 

Who is the main audience for speed and scale?

I’ve written this book for the leader inside every reader. We’re in a place right now where we need a concerted collective global action against the biggest sources of emissions. By collective action, what I mean is a high-school track team in Maryland that was tired of running behind polluting diesel buses convinced their school district to go to electric buses. Or I mean a group of employees who convinced their company to get to net zero 10 years early, like by 2040. We’ve got to find the leader inside each of us to move others, because if we don’t act collectively together, we’re going to run out of time.

In the U.S. especially, we have a philosophy that individuals have the “freedom” to pollute, to eat unsustainable food, to drive a huge truck. Do you think we can reverse that philosophy?

I don’t know. I think I’m very impressed with the ambition—let’s just stay on the U.S. for a moment—with the Biden plan. If he gets that through the House and Senate in the next week it will be the first meaningful climate legislation in the U.S. in two decades. No, it’s not everything they want and it’s not everything that I want. But it’s the boldest plan we’ve had. 

How do you feel about countries like Brazil that aren’t cooperating with global climate goals? Brazil’s government is encouraging deforestation of the Amazon. 

Well, this plan is not easy. The hardest part of the plan is that we have to act on all these all at once. Specifically to Brazil and [President Jair] Bolsonaro, I think his policies and programs are criminal, and we cannot allow a government to cut off the lungs of the planet. Market forces are going to be our best way to deal with rogue actors like Brazil and Russia. The weight of cross-border tariffs and other sanctions are going to be required to get us to be vicious enough and successful in the global actions required.

You’re saying that we need to prioritize climate change, but there are a lot of other things right now that people are worried about, like inflation and the supply chain crisis. Can we prioritize climate change and still address those concerns?

The climate revolution and the clean energy revolution that’s afoot affects every behavior on our planet. It’s how we feed ourselves. How we move around, how we make steel, how we make cement, how we grow, how we achieve security and prosperity. And as Al Gore says, the likelihood of pandemics like the one we’re suffering from only increases as the temperature increases. I deeply believe we need to leverage economics, whether it’s border taxes or prices on carbon or other economic incentives, to make sure that we preserve the forest, protect nature and get to net zero.

Are there any emerging technologies or companies that you’re particularly excited about in terms of climate action?

There’s a bunch of companies I’m excited about, some of which I’m an investor in, others which I admire and am rooting for along the way. One of the biggest contributions  will be breakthroughs in batteries. A breakthrough in batteries is like the Holy Grail. It’s what the microprocessor was to the personal computer and digital revolution. 

What are you hoping to see accomplished at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow? 

The most important thing is just to get nationally determined contributions. Those are the pledges from the world’s countries to be more ambitious, both in amount and in terms of time. And then for those pledges to be backed up by sector specific policies. So in the U.S. for example, President Biden has an ambitious objective, but he needs to get past the funding, get the regulations through the EPA. Then we need to do that for every one of the top 20 emitting countries.

There’s a stark lack of consensus around the use of coal and whether or not countries want to commit to phasing it out. Can we work around these countries? China is one of them.

You are 100% correct. We should put the nail in the coffin of coal at Glasgow. We should treble our deployment of renewable energy. We should terminate the manufacturing of internal combustion engines. I would love to see a global price on carbon. That would be a great contribution.

Any final thoughts about Speed and Scale and its impact on the next generation? 

This is the biggest thing that I’ve done in my life, with the help of experts from throughout the climate community. I am very excited about it. My generation created the problem. They are the generation who’s going to have to live with it. It’s no longer Mary saying to her Dad, “you better fix this problem.” She’s now saying we have to do this together.

Thanks, John.