Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data, joins Rose and Katie to explore why ending energy poverty is a top strategy for adapting to climate change, the role of scientists in activism, and the importance of data quality and availability. Hannah’s book, Not the End of the World, is out now.
Hannah Ritchie is a Fellow of the Energy for Growth Hub. She is Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data, the online publication that brings together the latest data and research on the world’s largest problems. She is also a senior Researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford. She focuses on the long-term development of food supply, agriculture, energy, and environment and their compatibility with global development. Her research appears regularly in the New York Times, Economist, Financial Times, BBC, WIRED, New Scientist, the Washington Post and Vox. Her first book, Not the End of the World, takes an optimistic, data-driven look at the world’s environmental problems and how to solve them. Hannah holds a BSc in Environmental Geoscience, an MSc in Carbon Management, and a PhD in GeoSciences from the University of Edinburgh, all from the University of Edinburgh.
Show Notes
- Hannah at the Hub, at Our World in Data, at the University of Oxford
- Hannah on LinkedIn, on Twitter
- Hannah’s website, where you see more of her research, writing, and data visualisations on how to solve the world’s largest problems
- Hans Rosling inspired Hannah’s career in data science.
- Hannah’s TED Talk asks, “Are we the last generation — or the first sustainable one?”
- For more refreshing takes on climate, energy, and data, subscribe to Hannah’s weekly Substack, Sustainability by Numbers
- Read Hannah’s memo breaking down sub-Saharan Africa’s CO2 emissions.
Transcript
(Music)
KATIE AUTH: I’m Katie Auth.
ROSE MUTISO: I am Rose Mutiso, and this is High Energy Planet, the podcast from the Energy for Growth Hub about new ideas to solve global energy poverty.
KATIE AUTH: Today we’re here with Hannah Ritchie, the Deputy Editor and lead researcher at our World in Data. Hannah is a data scientist and a science communicator, and her work uses data to tell stories about environmental sustainability, including climate change, energy, food, and ag biodiversity. A whole host of issues and often her analysis upends the common consensus around certain topics and makes us reconsider long-held assumptions. 2023 has been a big year for Hannah. She joined the Energy for Growth Hub as a fellow (yay!). She gave a big Ted Talk on climate optimism, which now has close to a million views, and she just published her first book, Not the End of the World.
ROSE MUTISO: We’re so excited to have Hannah on the show. For me, in particular, this is super exciting. So I’m based in London and I always look forward to hearing Hannah on the radio on the BBC. She’s a frequent contributor. And Hannah, I can actually recognize your voice just when I hear it. I ’cause the, the radio’s often in the background. I’m like. Yeah, that, that’s Hannah and it’s, it’s always super exciting. And, you know, as a full-time energy nerd, I obviously really appreciate, um, data research and analysis. It’s really rigorous work, but you know, what really stands out for me in addition to that is Hannah’s dedication to science communication, and, you know, this is an aspect that’s often overlooked by researchers. So whether she’s on the news writing or speaking, Hannah really goes the extra mile to share her insights with device audiences. And you know, this commitment means that she’s playing a significant role in reshaping our perspectives on intractable environmental challenges and really underscores why we need more researchers to take science communication as seriously as Hannah does. So, you know, thank you so much for this massive public service.
KATIE AUTH: And on my end, I’m really interested in the way that Hannah prompts her readers to reconsider their priors. So I think there are certain narratives that we’ve broadly accepted about what’s going on in the world and global trends and environmental health, and typically we tend to assume that everything sucks and is getting worse. Um, but what if that’s not the whole story? Story. So Hannah kind of opens up the aperture to look at what the data is really pointing to and why we might not be as doomed as we tend to think. Um, so we’ll talk about that and we’ll also talk to her about how her environmental analysis links to global human development and how. She thinks about imperatives, like expanding energy access and increasing energy consumption, um, in the face of, of environmental problems. So let’s get into it. Hannah, welcome to High Energy Planet. Thank you so much for being with us.
HANNAH RITCHIE: No, thanks for the lovely intro.
KATIE AUTH: You’re welcome. Um, so we always start out with our guests by asking them if they can tell us something about how and where you grew up and how it shaped the work that you do today.
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, so I grew up in a little town in Scotland called Falkirk, and I think. A really key thing that’s shaped my trajectory is like, like I think I’m now from a generation that kind of climate change has like always been on the radar and I think for me it was on the radar like very, very early as a kid I think, I mean, I think can sometimes have it also like a little bit of an anxious kid. I would like worry about stuff. Like a lot of stuff like really far off into the future. Like I am, I remember like stressing over, you know, how I would ever be able to afford a house and I was like five, so, so I probably had —
ROSE MUTISO: I mean in, in the UK, fair enough.
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, I mean, I’ve still got that anxiety now that’s never left. Um, but I think so, so probably I was like. Already quite an anxious kid about forward looking stuff. And for climate change, that’s just like very obvious match. So I remember like as a kid, uh, like even, you know, I remember an English class when I was maybe like 12 or 13, we had to give like a, a presentation to the class on like any topic. And people, like other classmates were picking like their favorite hobby or like. Football and I picked climate change and I just like freaked the class out. ’cause I stood at the front holding maps of what the world would look like, like two degrees, three degrees, four, and you just saw the coastlines getting swallowed up. So I think, yeah, I think that’s kind of where like a lot of my work comes from today is like still thinking about this, this climate problem. And then I, I studied environmental science at university. And you know, that just embedded the, not only climate change, but all of the other massive environmental problems that we face. So I think that was just like really key in shaping kind of my trajectory and, and what I focus on now.
ROSE MUTISO: So, I mean, what a trajectory you’ve been on from like intense, like anxiety from being a little kid and now you just published a book that has literally been called an an Antidote to climate despair. So, you know, all three of us have struggled with this feeling of. Being overwhelmed by climate change and, and many people do, and we even get emails, um, from folks asking us about, you know, feeling overwhelmed. And we often, often point them to you because, you know, this is, this is something that you’ve really kind of made a big mission of your is, is to combat despair. So tell us about the moment that you realize that this anxious reaction to climate change wasn’t healthy or wasn’t. You know, wasn’t serving you and, and how, how you took the first step towards changing your outlook and getting to this point where you’re really like the face of the opposite reaction.
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, I mean, I think I clarify that I think the anxiety is still there for me. Like I’m still really concerned. I still, there’s a lot of sleep over this problem, and I think in some sense anxiety is a healthy reaction. Like if, like a sense of anxiety is often about uncertainty, which I. You know, on the trajectories we’re on the future is very uncertain, and in some sense it’s a kind of human response to fret. So I think the, the anxiety is totally valid and I, I still feel it. Where I think my perspective has changed is that I think the, the level of anxiety was so deep that I couldn’t see any way out of it. Like I think at that. Point in time, I felt so hopeless. I felt like, you know, we just were impossible at solving problems and they would just get worse and worse and worse. I think. Um, a really key turning point for me was discovering the work of Hans Rosling. Now he would do, he was like a Swedish statistician, and he would give these amazing Ted talks and show how the world has changed over centuries. Now, he didn’t focus on environmental problems really, but he focused on the human lens. I think the problem I had at that stage is that all of the environmental trends were getting worse, but I was also assuming, you know, based on nothing, just based on news headlines, that everything else in the world must be getting worse. So, um, child mortality, hunger, poverty, just, you know, the world was falling apart. And I think he showed me that on many of these. Human wellbeing metrics. My framing was completely upside down and all of these things were getting better. It was just coming at the cost of the environment. So I think I’ve spent the last decade kind of trying to grapple with these two things of how do we continue to improve human wellbeing while also tackling environmental problems at the same time, I think on the environmental problems, I think. It’s not that we are on a good trajectory, it’s not that these problems are solved or we can be complacent, but I think there are some signals in there that, you know, change, environmental change is prob is possible. I think we are starting now to see really significant steps in the right direction and actually some environmental problems we’ve. We’ve actually solved, uh, like the layer acid, rain, you know, even local air pollution in many rich countries, um, is way, way down on where it was. So I think I, by studying the data, I can now see that no, there is actually solutions there and they are actually hampering. It’s just about how we accelerate that.
KATIE AUTH: So, you know, you’re talking about a whole range of both environmental and human development issues and the ways that they’re connected and trends across all of them. And one thing that Rose and I noticed when we were kind of looking at how the media has been covering. The book launch is that although your book focuses on, you know, a lot of different topics, a lot of the media attention has focused pretty narrowly on the climate issue, and we were curious what gets lost from your message if people focus too narrowly on climate and not enough on, on all the other stuff that you cover.
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, I think, I mean, I’ve been like a, I mean the media can cover it how they want to cover it, but like, yeah, I’ve been a little bit frustrated that it’s just only focused on climate. I mean, I cover seven big environmental problems in the book, and they’re all really significant and they’re all really strongly linked. Like, I think like a big thing that just gets missed is the, the health burden of air pollution, which in some sense, like if you look currently, it’s actually. Arguably a bigger problem than, than climate changes. Now that could change in the future, but the burden, health burden of air pollution today is really, really massive. And there are actually like pretty good solutions that, that we could have there to significantly reduce that burden quite quickly. I think there are other elements that I think are just so important, even if you’re only looking for a climate lens, like food and agriculture is so crucial. Like for me, the one of the biggest risks of climate change is how it impacts food systems and agriculture. To me, like the food chapter covers, like we have a host of solutions there. There’s so much low hanging fruit on how to improve food security and combine that with alleviating environmental pressures. So I think there are a host of other problems that I think people just don’t look at, and they only look at the climate lens, which gives you a very, very narrow focus on the problem and also the solutions.
ROSE MUTISO: I was just gonna say, I think part of the challenge for many people is, um, kind of needing the sense like there are so many sprawling issues and you kind of want. A mechanism to prioritize. And because the climate lens can link many different things, um, and you know, I think there’s just like, um, a tendency to just want to simplify and narrow down and, and feel like you’re working with the thing that matters. And one thing I found really interesting in your book is you had this schematic, um, based on, I think, um. Uh, a a an idea that Ken Calder and others had shared about, you know, people pulling in the same direction. Like you could be working on many different things. Could you just share a little bit more on this, because we often hear, especially, um, a lot of like younger people, uh, asking for career advice and stuff like that, and shaped very much by the sense of what should I be working on? What is the thing that will make the biggest difference? Like, how, how do you, how do you respond to that?
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, so I think in the book I’ve got schematic, and this was inspired by, I think it was Ken Calera that I saw it, but he maybe got it from Andrew Desler. So like, I think there
ROSE MUTISO: I, I, I love, I love your commitment to like
KATIE AUTH: Citations. Yeah.
HANNAH RITCHIE: don’t wanna take any credit for it. Um, but yeah, it’s like a diagram where if you imagine like a center and this is our, our problems and there’s loads of arrows pointing in one direction, and those are people trying to pull us in the right direction to make progress on this problem. Um, and we all have like our favorite solution to this stuff, right? People have their favorite, favorite energy solution or their favorite food solution. Um, and I think what we often see is that, um. Where we fight with people the most are people that are largely, really strongly aligned with us, right? We all are trying to move in that direction. It’s just that, you know, your arrow might be like 10 degrees off to my right and someone else to 10 degrees to my left, and we fail to recognize that we’re put, we’re trying to pull in the same direction. And the risk is that we spend so much time fighting amongst ourselves. And the problem is that there are arrows pulling in the other direction that don’t want us to move forward. The risk is that we focus all our attention, um, on our kind of in, in-group fighting, and we kind of fail to recognize, you know, what’s the actual problem that we’re trying to solve. So there’s like, uh, issue like here, you know, you get like nuclear, like nuclear really pronuclear people will fight with really pro renewable people. And you know, you get, um, you know, the. We should move to meet substitute crowd, get angry with the, we should eat, you know, more raw plant-based diet crowds. There, there’s loads of people that are really largely strongly aligned, but they fail to recognize it. I think what’s important in this space is to try and recognize, you know, who we are aligned with and make sure we’re not spending all of our time just trying to dunk on them.
KATIE AUTH: Yeah.
ROSE MUTISO: Okay. Alright. So, okay. Speaking of um, prioritization, um, you do make quite a bold statement in the book, um, and you state that pulling people out of poverty is the number one strategy for adapting to climate change. Um, I think this is something a lot of people would find quite surprising, um, especially in the climate space. Not many people understand. The poverty world or the development world. And so could you kind of explain that in more detail? Like what are the key data trends you see that make poverty alleviation so important to the point that you say like, this is the most important thing we should be doing for climate change adaptation.
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah. So if you look at, um, the history, for example, over the last century of deaths from disasters, now you would assume that those were going up. Significantly because of climate change and the impacts of climate change. But actually when you look at the trend over the last century, they’ve largely gone down. You get lots of year to year variation that’s often caused by earthquakes. They tend to be like the most fatal, uh, disasters now. But the overall like general trend is downwards. Now it’s not downwards because climate change isn’t happening or isn’t making extreme weather more severe. It’s going down because we become much more resilient disasters. So we have early warning systems, um, we have more resilient infrastructure. If there is a disaster, aid gets there much faster than it would in the past. So we become much more resilient to disasters. Now, there’s nothing to say that that trend continues. Climate disasters will continue to escalate and probably non-linearly. And if we fail, if we fail to equip people with the resilience to tackle them, um, and withstand them, then disaster deaths will start to go up. But that’s a really key part of this equation. Like the, the impacts from climate change will not only be about the actual physical climate impact, which is what most people focus on, like how strong is the vulnerability. So the number of people in the way. So that means, um, the number of people on a coastline, if the sea level rises or the number of people in a particular region, they’re exposed to a heat wave. And then the final part of that is, you know, resilience. And that is does the pe, do the people in that region have air conditioners or ways to get out of the heat? Um, are there ways where you can build a sea wall so the sea level doesn’t rise? And these, those, especially the last. Part of that equation is largely related to poverty. When you’re in poverty and you rely on farming as your key source of income and you get a bad harvest, that that’s your whole, uh, basically annual income gone. So I think this last part of the equation of managing to to lift people out of poverty is so crucial to limit the damages.
KATIE AUTH: So the next step, the follow on from that I think is obviously like how do we. Advance those anti-poverty goals without, uh, intensifying the climate impact. How do we move away from a space in which those two goals are often considered kind of fundamentally at odds? Right. And I know that’s something that you care about and something that we’ve written a lot about as well. I’m curious, like when you, um, think about how we move into a space where, you know. Uh, universal energy access, for example, or, um, universal poverty alleviation are not at odds with climate. What are some of the big questions that you think are still outstanding about how we do that?
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, it’s a good question and I think it’s like an area. Um, it’s probably quite contested about how you do that. I mean, there’s just this general consensus that, you know, development just leads to more CO2 emissions, therefore, you know, a big issue with climate changes that, you know, we can’t develop. Um, and I think, I think there’s a couple of key questions there or key points there. I think if you are to like really look at. What would be the climate impact of alleviating the worst levels of poverty in the world is actually really small. It really makes very, very little difference to global CO2 emissions. So if we’re gonna say no, it’s not acceptable for people to move up poverty because of climate, that’s just such a bad argument. Um, and I think that also relates to, to some of our perspectives around, um. Financing of energy in particular countries. Like I think there is this kind of western high income, um, forcing of, no, we won’t finance your fossil fuel projects because that’s bad for the climate. Even though in the rich world we’re still extracting lots of fossil fuels. Um, if you wanna develop in a way that’s high carbon, then we won’t accept that. And I think that’s really, really damaging because I think just alleviating poverty at the lowest incomes would have very, very little impact on climate. Um, the, the broader question is, I mean, the ideal would be that these two would be completely compatible, right? You could provide low carbon energy at a really low cost, and therefore you could just skip fossil fuels altogether. I think there are really big questions there of like how feasible that is right now. How long would it be until that’s just. The absolute default, like I could see there being a trajectory by what we, by which we get there. I’m just not sure if that applies to every sector and the timeframes from that. Like there’s this concept of like leapfrogging, which I really, really want to believe in, but I think we lack empirical evidence, like strong empirical evidence at the moment that that’s what’s happening or, or could happen in the near term.
ROSE MUTISO: It’s really interesting, um, and kind of ties back to, uh, something you talk about in the book about being a conditional or pragmatic optimist and you borrow this language again, attributing very well to, uh, Paul Romer, the Economist. But, you know, so on one hand you, you know, you have so much optimism about the trend lines, technology costs coming down, uh, you know, a real, um, opportunity like you say in your TED Talk to be the first sustainable generation and to kind of create. This new energy and economic future. But on the other hand, the nitty gritty, like what you’re saying is it’s not clear if leapfrogging, um, you know, is going to save us all in the timeline that we needed to happen. So how do you, how do you place yourself in this? So, you know, having established yourself as an, as a, as an optimist, how do you balance these complicated nuances that kind of, tamper down the optimism, if you will, like in this specific situation of the leapfrogging potential in poor countries.
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, I think that’s a good question. Like, I think I, I try to frame myself as a, as an optimist based on the data that I can see in the trends moving in the right direction. I think the way I differentiate it, and as Paul Rumer differentiated it, is you get optimists that just assume, you know, yeah, this is gonna be great and things will just continue to get better. And I guess that’s maybe like this feeling of, yeah, the technology trends, the prices are going down, so I’m sure this will just happen. Um, and I think that’s like a really wrong approach to take. I think my optimism is based on this. Belief valid or not that I think that we can make a difference if we really work at it. Um, so I think it’s, it’s predicated totally on human action rather than let’s just let the trends flow and it’ll just all work out. And I think it is really hard to balance. You need to continually update based on the latest data, and you need to be, you should probably hold your opinions. Quite loosely and, and, and be very, very willing to change your mind. Um, which I’m, I’m always open to.
KATIE AUTH: I think. Part of what makes the optimism difficult sometimes is because it’s. Easier in some ways to look at the data and think about what we should do. And I think your work does that really well. It’s a whole other question to think about how humans can actually organize themselves and overcome all of the political, uh, entrenched interests and, you know, all of the geopolitical stuff that’s going on. That’s a messy, really complicated space. Uh, curious whether you think scientists like yourself who are focused on the data, do you have any role to play in that broader question of how you move from, what should we do to how do we do it?
HANNAH RITCHIE: Um, I’m always quite cautious on this ’cause I kind of take the view. I’ve tried to be, and it’s hard, it’s a hard line to walk, but I also try in the book to not be like really prescriptive and say, this is what we have to do and this is what we should do. I think the role for me, the role of scientists is to lay out, well, one to make clear like these are the problems, this is the scale of the problem, this is what we could expect. Um, but also even on, on the solution side is to lay out. These are the potential solutions. These are the pros and cons of these solutions. This is what happened. This is what happened to your CO2 emissions if you deploy this amount of solar power. Um, and I. What we can do really strongly. I don’t think it’s necessarily our place to mandate that or say this is what we have to do or what we should do. Um, but as I say, like I think that that’s like a really hard line to walk. ’cause obviously I have strong opinions of what we should do. Um, but I think, I think to, to kind of. Maintain kind of scientific credibility and try to be as non-biased as possible. You kind of need to try and reel that in a little bit.
KATIE AUTH: Do you find that you kind of hold in your personal or to hold back on your. Personal preferences, your opinions, do you have to make a conscious effort to kind of sideline that part of yourself?
HANNAH RITCHIE: I do find it difficult, like I do, like have quite strong opinions on what we should do. Um. I get, I mean, obviously I get really frustrated when things are not moving in the direction that I think they should be moving in. Um, so it is hard to, to to reign that in sometimes. But like I, I try my best. I think it’s also really important, especially when you’re speaking to like a really wide range of audiences because they all react very differently to your suggested solutions. I think you need to be really, really cautious not to. Especially not to alienate pot potential people, especially when we’re thinking about this diagram of like pulling in the right direction. I mean, if you go and we really, really super pre prescriptive, um, solutions then, I mean, you know, arrows that are aligned, like closely aligned with, you start to to get angry.
ROSE MUTISO: So I find this so interesting ’cause um, I kind of, I, I was I I finishing up my PhD, uh, this was in the kind of late naughties and uh, it was a time when there was a sense those really rising anti-science, uh, sentiment, which actually looking at where we are now, maybe that was just the beginning of it. Um, and, um. Scientists started to kind of have a real kind of political awakening. There were a lot of scientific marches and I actually ended up doing a postdoc in government. And this, it was a scheme specifically to get scientists engaged with policy to understand how they impact policy and policy impacts them. And you know, there’s a sense of, there’s an attack on science and science funding. And so, um, you know. Uh, uh, I, I I think a lot of my scientific identity, um, has really been built around this idea that scientists, we need to be part of these policy conversations. Um, looking back at the, you know, the trend lines now, I, I, you know, I, I, I think your perspective is giving me food for thought. I don’t know how much, uh, where kind of scientists, you know, this different brand of being a scientist in the world, um, how these coexist. I don’t know if, um. There’s a role for us in the small politicized part of the, the spectrum, trying to kind of make and agitate and make noise for science, or if that has done more harm and good. Um, is giving me a lot of thought. Yeah.
HANNAH RITCHIE: I guess it depends on like, like I guess there’s also a broader discussion like what. Like, what does the activism mean? Like, I’m always gonna say, I think climate change is a really big problem. We need to tackle it. Like, is that me being an activist? Because I’m saying we need to take action on this. Um, so I think, and like, I like, it’s not that I don’t think scientists should be involved necessarily, shouldn’t be at all involved in policy discussions. I think they can play a really strong like, advisory, advisory role on policy discussion. So if a politician wants to set, you know, a particular carbon reduction target, like scientists should, can be really heavily involved in saying like, these are the different scenarios, these are the different options. Here are the pluses and minuses of those. But I think, I think the, the risk is that they go, we go in with like a really strong prescription. Um, so I think that’s where I think the, the risk tips the other way.
KATIE AUTH: Mm-Hmm.
ROSE MUTISO: Yeah. But you know, one thing I do agree with you, um, in your book and in your writing and speaking is I do have a sense that just in my career so far, climate has become depoliticized. And I think you make points about how, you know, uh. People are making choices about renewable energy investments and that kind of thing predicated on the technology or the, the economics or your brother with his Tesla and whatnot. So, um, I, I think the trendlines are positive, so we must be doing something right as kind of scientists of different stripes.
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, I don’t, I mean, I think I get some pushback on this. It’s not that I don’t think politics matters. I think it actually does really matter. I think my concern is that like tackling climate change or any of these other environmental problems, this is like a multi-decade. Problem. Right. And it, we, we, we work, we operate in a world where there are different types of governments, like left and right across the world. Any one time, even in any one country, you’re gonna get swings back and forward from light to left over the decades. So we, the, the emphasis has to be, we need to find a way of framing climate solutions so that they’re persistent and they don’t just, you know, it’s not just like one step forward, two steps back every time you switch government. I think the, the, that’s for me where I. The trying to depi us politicize as much as possible is key because we need to create, you know, climate action and policies that will withstand left wing and right wing, um, and like a whole range of different governments across the world.
KATIE AUTH: Well in the different shapes and forms that those swings are gonna take depending on what country you’re looking at. And I think that’s a challenge. In of this is like climate change is obviously a global problem and your own work tackles issues that are transnational in so many ways, but the relevance of any particular policy, solution is going to be very localized. The relevance of it, but also, you know, as you mentioned earlier, like the degree to which people in that country, in that context are going to wanna sign on and wanna support something. So that is a tricky kind of conflict there.
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, like I, like I’ve, I’ve highlighted this example in the US before where like a lot of action at the US is like relegated to the state level. And there again, you’ve got this whole mosaic of like. Democratic and, and Democrat and Republican states. Um, and actually interestingly, when you look at the data, um, you’d assume that, you know, I mean, climate in the US is actually very partisan. It’s probably like one of the most partisan, uh, countries in the world on, on climate, but much, much less partisan on clean energy. So actually when you look at trends of, of wind and solar deployment in the us. Like, especially for wind, like the top five states are all Republican now. They’re not all Republican because, you know, Republican states really care about the climate. It’s just that they’re in a really windy zone where, you know, go, you get really good economic returns. Um, people like energy security, there are benefits to local community. So there are ways of framing climate solutions, which can be depoliticized by focusing on different stuff, even if it’s not related to climate, by focusing on energy security or local benefits of clean energy. I think that’s, for me, what’s really key is that we manage to take as many people with us as we can. And that might mean just like shutting up about climate for, for a little bit, depending, depending on the audience that you’re speaking to. And for me, that’s really hard. I wanna like tell everyone to act based on
KATIE AUTH: you’re still that school girl with your poster of
ROSE MUTISO: I know. Yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe talk more about affordable housing for, for, younger generations to pivot. Um, okay. So I just want to, um, just circle back to one more kind of nerdy question. Um, uh, coming back down from these kind of more philosophical questions, um, around when and how we should act. So data quality and availability is a chronic problem in low income countries. Um. Especially in comparison to richer countries, though we know that even in rich countries, this is a, this is a big issue. Um, so, you know, your role, um, is to look at all of this long-term data, usually from existing sources to come up with these kind of insights that we’re kind of, um, that are hidden when we don’t take the long view. So to what extent does this approach that prioritizes analyzing lots of data, inevitably pay less attention to countries that. Have massive data gaps and bias us towards an understanding of the world that, you know, disproportionately reflects the places where the data is widespread. And, and if so, what do we do about it?
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, that’s a good question. And yeah, there’s massive data quality issues across the world. Like we don’t even do, not even just on like. Energy and environment stuff, but also on, like, we do lots on health and poverty. And for many of those indicators, like the, the statistical capacity in many countries is, is really, really poor. Um, I think, I think it does slant our, our bias on solutions, uh, in particular and with our focus on rich countries where we just have good data and we can monitor what’s happening. I think there is the potential that we, we start to get better at this. Using technology. Like I think there are now ways of, of trying to do this in a better way using ai you’re using
ROSE MUTISO: Mm-Hmm.
HANNAH RITCHIE: or, um, like a big data quality issue, for example, is like I cover over phishing in, in the book and we have like pretty good like phishing data, um, for, for richer countries. But there are like some parts of the oceans where we just have very little understanding of what’s going on and actually in. Uh, because like a key, a key problem with war fashion is that. You can actually sustainably fish if you can monitor, you know, what are, what are the levels of fish, pop fish populations, how much can you sustainably take out? And you can like set quotas on how much fishermen can catch when you don’t have any data on what fish. What’s fish populations. Populations are there and like put limits on how much fishermen can catch. You can probably assume in many regions that they’re overfishing, like just because you don’t have the data to monitor and, and, and, uh, adapt to that. But there are now no methods that are coming online. Like there’s the Global Fishing Watch, like recently just published, like a whole global analysis where they can basically track entire fishing activity across the world. And there are eliminating regions where we had very, very poor data before. So I think the statistical quality. Will improve, but I think there are just still massive gaps, which, and sometimes might underestimate the, the scale of the problem in in particular regions.
KATIE AUTH: Well, I was just curious if you could wave a magic wand today and close one global data gap, what would you pick?
HANNAH RITCHIE: I think it would be on, um. death registrations and what people die from, like, I think on health data, um, for many countries, like just so many deaths are just not even registered and we, we don’t even know. We just don’t know what people. I’ve died from. And I think that really affects our, I mean, there’s a way that we can like model and estimate and try and get a rough estimate. Um, but I think it really under, under, um, cells our ability to, to understand like what are the major health
ROSE MUTISO: Mm-Hmm.
HANNAH RITCHIE: How many people are dying, how are the trends changing? I think for me that would be like a massive data gap to fill.
ROSE MUTISO: And I think, uh, the Covid crisis definitely underscored how nobody’s kind of doing that. Right. Um, one other thing I just wanted to highlight for the listeners, um, Hannah’s book, um, just came out, but, uh, you, uh, you also released, uh, a database online, uh, that points to all of your data sources, um, and, and a deeper. Uh, die for anyone who wants to see where the data comes from. So I think that was really, really cool. Could you just quick, quick, uh, comment on why you did that? Why you wrote a book and then created a whole site that just kind of put all of the detailed data, like, and created all this extra work for yourself. Why was that really important for you?
HANNAH RITCHIE: Yeah, I think a couple of reasons. I think one is, I mean, in the book, you know, I, I have some charts in the book, but you know, you can’t put like 200 countries on a, on a chart in a book. Um, and I often show like one or only like a small selection. And I think everyone’s interested in like, oh, how is my country doing on CO2 emissions? Um, so I wanted to put the, the interactive charts up there so people can go and explore what’s happening for their country or in other country. So it’s not just bias to the countries I show in the book. I think two is that. I think it is just important to be like transparent about data sources and people can go and dig into the sources and see how the data is constructed and, and compare it to other sources. And then free is that, I think, um, my my work like entirely relies on the amazing work of, of data providers and researchers and I wanted to like. I mean, you can flick to the end of the book and see the reference list, but I, I wanted to like try and highlight them a bit as well so people are forwarded on to like their original work and can
ROSE MUTISO: Mm-Hmm.
KATIE AUTH: Mm-Hmm.
HANNAH RITCHIE: because they, I mean, I, I don’t do anything, the original research myself. I just say what they, uh, they’re saying.
ROSE MUTISO: Um, that’s super cool. Um, thanks so much for, for doing that. I hope, uh, it’s, it’s a new trend in nonfiction publishing.
KATIE AUTH: Yeah, and we definitely look forward to using all of that data, so thank you, Hannah. Um, all right. We have one last question, which is something we ask all of our guests, which is, looking back, what do you think is the biggest thing that’s changed about you personally since you started this work?
HANNAH RITCHIE: Um, I think I’ve became less angry.
KATIE AUTH: Hmm. Say more.
HANNAH RITCHIE: when I was, I think when I was younger I had this, and in some sense it’s, it’s very valid. And I think many people feel that I just have this intense anger, like the inequality in the world and like the, the level of suffering. And I think I had this, you know, kind of perspective that like there was just such large amounts of suffering and no one cared. Um, and I think I felt very, very angry about that. And to some extent, like I. The anger is still there a bit because you know, there are still massive inequalities in the world and it’s extremely unfair. But I think a little bit of that’s faded because I, maybe I have a better grasp on like how complex these issues are. I think I used to just think it was just a really simple solution. You could just click your fingers and maybe if you could just like. all the world money between everyone. I would just solve a, and I think I’ve realized it’s just a bit more complex than that. So I, maybe my anger’s dialed down a bit and now it’s maybe replaced with confusion, um, because I also just don’t know what the solution is.
KATIE AUTH: I think that’s the downside of, of maturing and realizing how complicated the world is a daunting sense of, oh no. Now what do I do?
ROSE MUTISO: Well, I mean you did a, oh, go. Sorry. Go ahead.
HANNAH RITCHIE: I think probably recently I had the moment of like turning around, like imagining like, oh, where are the adults? And realizing, oh no, I’m one of the
KATIE AUTH: Oh no, that’s me. Yeah, that’s terrifying.
ROSE MUTISO: Yeah, we’re definitely getting older, but I mean, um, I think for a confused person, you did a very good job of, uh, writing a very cogent book about solutions and what we can do about it. So, um, uh, I, I, I mean, if this is you confused, I, I look forward to seeing you even less confused.
KATIE AUTH: Okay. Okay, Hannah. Now it’s time to play short circuit, which is our rapid fire round of questions. Are you ready?
HANNAH RITCHIE: I’m ready.
KATIE AUTH: Okay. Number one, what’s your favorite productivity tip?
HANNAH RITCHIE: Get up early in the morning.
ROSE MUTISO: Okay. You and Todd are both early rises. Uh, Todd is our boss and he loves to get up early. Okay. Um, what’s the most unappreciated thing about Scotland?
HANNAH RITCHIE: Um, oh. Uh, I think how friendly people are, I think generally. I
mean, if you can understand, if you can understand the accents, then you can realize that we’re actually saying, I mean, I think the, the Scottish accent often sounds quite harsh, so it sounds like we’re always angry,
KATIE AUTH: No, I love the Scottish
HANNAH RITCHIE: people are saying, yeah.
ROSE MUTISO: I’m laughing because, uh, I, not to generalize and use stereotypes, I was literally just telling a friend of mine from Kenya who was visiting, uh, the UK that Scottish people are the nicest people in the uk. So I’m giving myself points for being correct, but taking points away for generalizing. But that’s really cool.
KATIE AUTH: Um, so you obviously did not enter a traditional academic pathway, but if you had become a traditional academic, what’s one course that you would love to teach?
HANNAH RITCHIE: Oh, global development. I think, well that, I think that’s what I was really lacking from my like environmental degree. It was like we just went straight into like pure, like, here’s a rock. Let’s study the rock. When actually I would’ve wanted to know like. Kind of the Hans Rosling stuff, like, what’s happening to global poverty? What’s happening to hunger, health? I think just an overall broad course on that would’ve like really helped me understand the world a little bit better.
ROSE MUTISO: All right. So fill in the blank. Um, and, and again, no overthinking, just kind of chop, chop. Boom, boom, boom. Okay. All right. Climate change is blank.
Okay. That’s, that’s, that’s true. I, I, I was hoping you’d say solvable, but I’ll take serious. Stay, Stay, stay on brand, Hannah. Okay. Um, the future will be blank.
HANNAH RITCHIE: Better
ROSE MUTISO: I, I like that one.
Um, science Cannot blank.
HANNAH RITCHIE: solve everything on its own.
KATIE AUTH: Awesome.
And what’s the, what’s the one sentence message that you most want young people to absorb from your work?
HANNAH RITCHIE: The world can be much better for everyone in the
future if we work for it today.
ROSE MUTISO: Um, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us, uh, Hannah, for your great work, um, sharing all these amazing insights that are giving us a sense of, um, well grounded and well founded optimism. Um, and we look forward to seeing, uh, what you have up your sleeve next, and, uh, hopefully bring you back on the show to discuss your next project.
So thank you so much.
KATIE AUTH: Thanks,
HANNAH RITCHIE: No thanks. Thank you, both, for having me.
ROSE MUTISO: All right, so that’s it for today’s show. High Energy Planet is a production of the energy for growth hub, matching policymakers with evidence-based pathways to a high energy future. For everyone, find out more@energyforgrowth.org and share your questions and thoughts with us at Energy for Growth on X and LinkedIn.
KATIE AUTH: If you like today’s episode, be sure to rate and review the podcast and tell a friend about us. Audrey Zenner is our executive producer. Join us next time for more high energy planet.