Promises, promises
2020 has been the year of promises. Everywhere you look, the titans of finance and capitalism are promising to be carbon “net zero” (the climate buzzword of the year) by 2050. Our inbox is flooded with announcements from climate-related alliances and initiatives, including the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, the Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance, the Race to Resilience the Climate Action 100+ 2020 Progress Report and The Investor Agenda, to name some of the biggest. We are awash with acronyms. Inside The Investor Agenda, for example, are such organizations as AIGCC, CDP, Ceres, IIGCC, HGCC, PRI and other bits of alphabet soup.
I jest, but seriously, all of this is good news. The Zoom era has facilitated endless steering-committee meetings that are accelerating the actions of global coalitions working toward the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Now comes the hard part. Sadly, Mother Nature is not on one of these steering committees. She has not received the memo. The earth is getting warmer, partly because the digital age is going into hyperdrive. Meg Massey reports that powering the sprawling data farms that are the backbone of our cloud-computing economy is releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than all the planes and helicopters in the world.
Faith Ward, in our latest Leadership Interview, offers some very sobering words for that very same financial community promising “net zero.” She warns that business as usual could lead to a catastrophic increase of 3°C — twice as high as the Paris Agreement target. The entire financial system, says Ward “just doesn’t work. It’s not designed to get us to a net-zero future or Paris.”
So yes, there is a lot of work to do. And there are a lot of climate-doers making an impact. This week, we also profile and interview on our podcast former Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen, who, in his own quiet way, is turning the red state of Tennessee green — and helping massive data farms reduce their carbon footprint.
Finally, we know this will be a quiet holiday season. So instead of parties, kick back and watch what we believe are the 10 best climate films and documentaries.
See you after Christmas.
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