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Innovation Will Continue to Enable New Economies

By Anu (Part 2 of 3)

On Valentine's Day, CERES invited a small kasina team to visit the United Nations for the Investor Summit on Climate Risk. The summit attendees represented firms with over $12 Trillion in AUM. The related brainpower was equally impressive, yet one topic stood out to me.

The topic was innovation and delivered by Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems and Sand Hill Road titan. He made the case for investing heavily in innovation to eliminate our country's foreign oil dependence. What floored me was his optimism and bold predictions. Khosla views the underinvestment in education as the limiting factor to reducing carbon emissions. His bold predictions included:

• Oil prices will have to drop dramatically to compete with bio-mass fuels in 3 to 5 years (in an unsubsidized world).


• Carbon-assuming cement will be a reality and in use within 5 years.


• First-generation food fuels (e.g., corn-based ethanol) will be irrelevant and should garner no government investment.

Bold predictions made in an important time period. That, coupled with Al Gore's message of fiduciary responsibility, made for an unforgettable day.