The technologies that will help us live with climate change and slow its progress are already here.

Some are newly on the market, while others are on the threshold of commercial viability. The World in 2050 (as recently envisioned by Imperial’s Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment and Imperial Tech Foresight) is nearer than you might think.

To reach this point, the innovators and entrepreneurs behind these new technologies have put in many years of work. Professor Richard Templer, Director of Innovation at the Grantham Institute, has seen their dedication first-hand, and the effort needed to convince sceptical investors.

“When we started the Cleantech Accelerator at the end of 2011, not many people were interested in climate change innovation,” he says. “There had been a boom and bust that started around 2003, and by 2010 about $1.5 billion had been lost in these investments. So we were seen as crazy to work in this area.”