Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity are three of the most significant problems facing the world today. This talk discusses the development of technical and economic roadmaps to solve these problems in the 50 United States and worldwide. The solution is to electrify buildings, transport, and industry and provide the electricity with 100% clean, renewable wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) and storage. Results indicate the grid can remain stable at low cost in all 50 states and each of 29 world regions encompassing 150 countries examined. Aside from mitigating global warming, these roadmaps have the potential to eliminate over seven million air pollution deaths annually, reduce international conflict over energy, stabilize energy prices, reduce catastrophic risk, and create jobs. The talk also discusses why we do not need "miracle" technologies such as carbon capture, direct air capture, blue hydrogen, small modular nuclear reactors, or bioenergy.

About the speaker

Mark Z. Jacobson is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University. He has been a professor at Stanford since 1994. His career focuses on better understanding air pollution and global warming problems and developing clean, renewable energy solutions to them. He has published seven books, including his latest, "Still No Miracles Needed," and 190 journal articles.

In 2022, he was ranked as the #1 most impactful scientist in the world in Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences and #6 in Energy among those first publishing past 1985. In 2018, he received the Judi Friedman Lifetime Achievement Award "For a distinguished career dedicated to finding solutions to air pollution and climate problems." In 2023, he was named one of the top 100 globally "who have made an impact on the world this year" by Worth magazine. In 2025, he was named one of 10 "clean energy leaders to know and follow" worldwide by Climate Insider.

He has served on a committee to the U.S. Secretary of Energy, appeared in a TED talk and on the David Letterman Show, and co-founded The Solutions Project nonprofit. He served as an expert witness in the first U.S. climate trial to win and be upheld, Held v. Montana, and the world's first climate case to reach a settlement, Navahine v. Hawai'i. His work is the scientific basis of the U.S. Green New Deal and laws to go to 100% renewable energy worldwide.