“Companies that buy carbon credits decarbonize twice as fast as those which do not.”
Politics has been called the art of the possible. Yet regarding climate change, this adage is flipped on its head — it’s the art of the impossible. As the world prepares for COP 28, the 28th United Nations Climate Summit, we desperately need to shift our efforts to immediate, bold action that’s possible now. And far from diminishing our ambition, focusing on available actions can get the world back on track to make the impossible possible.
The urgency of addressing climate change is undeniable, and the litany of impacts is becoming rote: stronger hurricanes and typhoons; deadly floods; years-long droughts, heatwaves baking entire continents. Records fall every year: The hottest. The driest. The wettest. The deadliest. It is hard to have hope when confronted with the reality that even if every country meets its current commitment to reduce carbon emissions, the world will still be 24 billion tons short of what’s needed in 2030 to keep climate change below 1.5 degrees Celsius. While hope is not a strategy, pragmatism is. When we focus on what’s possible, with science as our guide, endless opportunities come into view. Every action we take today raises our ambitions tomorrow.A path forward Among the many possible actions, we need “all of the above” to reduce emissions. Yet, few strategies offer as much opportunity for global, scalable, short-term benefit as carbon markets. For governments, markets bring flexibility that can reduce the cost of meeting their commitments under the Paris Agreement by $250 billion per year in 2030, growing to a total of $21 trillion of mitigation cost savings between 2020 and 2050. These savings can be reinvested into climate action, raising ambitions to close the 24-billion-ton gap, which is why 83% of countries include the use of carbon markets in their climate commitments. In the private sector, companies that buy carbon credits decarbonize twice as fast as those …
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“Companies that buy carbon credits decarbonize twice as fast as those which do not.”
Politics has been called the art of the possible. Yet regarding climate change, this adage is flipped on its head — it’s the art of the impossible. As the world prepares for COP 28, the 28th United Nations Climate Summit, we desperately need to shift our efforts to immediate, bold action that’s possible now. And far from diminishing our ambition, focusing on available actions can get the world back on track to make the impossible possible.
The urgency of addressing climate change is undeniable, and the litany of impacts is becoming rote: stronger hurricanes and typhoons; deadly floods; years-long droughts, heatwaves baking entire continents. Records fall every year: The hottest. The driest. The wettest. The deadliest. It is hard to have hope when confronted with the reality that even if every country meets its current commitment to reduce carbon emissions, the world will still be 24 billion tons short of what’s needed in 2030 to keep climate change below 1.5 degrees Celsius. While hope is not a strategy, pragmatism is. When we focus on what’s possible, with science as our guide, endless opportunities come into view. Every action we take today raises our ambitions tomorrow.A path forward Among the many possible actions, we need “all of the above” to reduce emissions. Yet, few strategies offer as much opportunity for global, scalable, short-term benefit as carbon markets. For governments, markets bring flexibility that can reduce the cost of meeting their commitments under the Paris Agreement by $250 billion per year in 2030, growing to a total of $21 trillion of mitigation cost savings between 2020 and 2050. These savings can be reinvested into climate action, raising ambitions to close the 24-billion-ton gap, which is why 83% of countries include the use of carbon markets in their climate commitments. In the private sector, companies that buy carbon credits decarbonize twice as fast as those …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]