The vaccines against COVID-19 exemplify the potential of human ingenuity. A globally collaborative research effort yielded an innovative solution to a pressing problem, developed with unprecedented speed but also remarkable efficacy.

The inspiring effort to create the vaccine has made the bumpier aspects of its rollout all the more disappointing. How could such an eagerly anticipated technology go so wrong? Well, it turns out that there’s a big gap between developing solutions and implementing them at scale.

This should raise alarm bells for anyone working on climate tech. Climate change is a very different sort of challenge than a pandemic, due to the long-term time horizon and the fact that emissions are tied to nearly every aspect of human life and economic activity. However, the early failures of the vaccine rollout can serve as an informative case study about technological fixes for complex global challenges.

Specifically, here are five lessons that the vaccine rollout can teach to startups, investors, governments and anyone else working to advance climate tech:

  1. Innovation isn’t everything 
  2. Don’t sleep on logistics 
  3. Policy matters 
  4. Equity is essential (but thorny)
  5. Misinformation runs rampant

Read the full article about climate tech by Ben Soltoff at GreenBiz.