World leaders reconvene in Egypt for COP27 to address the existential threat of the climate crisis; while there are solutions, the world needs to see action and implementation. To achieve this, the global community needs both competence and optimism.
COP27 should be about collaboration, green acceleration, and, most importantly, giving life to existing concepts and solutions to measure and create much-needed green jobs. A metaphorical crossing of the Red Sea is needed to halt the current trajectory to 2.8°C or more of global warming. It’s time for finance to rise.
In 2012, at COP18 in Doha, a pilot facility for the production of food, energy, water, and revegetation in desert areas was launched. Today, a few kilometers from where the COP took place, the Sahara Forest Project produces tons of vegetables far from the Jordanian desert, in greenhouses cooled by salt water, with its own renewable energy, planting desert trees.
Not everyone believed, back in 2012. But seeing believed, and still does.
At the dawn of the 2000s the electrification of transportation seemed more of a vision than a possible reality. In 2009, when Bellona brought the first four Tesla Roadsters to Europe at COP15 in Copenhagen, it all became more real. Today, we can recognize the great strides made in the last 13 years.
Not everyone believed, even in 2009. But the needle has been moved. Seeing is believing.
The saying may be old and a little worn but it’s certainly not true. Will some electric car solve the problem? No. But can it click the right gears into place? Absolutely.
Renewable energy has been doing this for years, with rapidly decreasing costs for solar, wind, and storage technologies all changing the energy sector. Replacing the fossil fuels used has also become a no-brainer in many other applications, with heavy construction machinery being the latest addition. Manufacturers are increasingly aware of the fact that not only is electrification good for the environment, it’s also good for workers’ health, noise levels, and the pocketbook. In industry, carbon capture and storage is becoming feasible as a great solution for process emissions that are difficult to remove.
And while the damages and losses of climate change continue to increase every year without action, the global community is still trying to deliver on the 2009 pledge to mobilize only $100 billion annually from developed countries.
But the tempo is lacking. Implementation is lacking. Scale is missing. And not least, lack of finance.
Getting money for the right projects is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges in the fight against climate change. Our current measures for accelerating funding, for adaptation and mitigation, have failed. And while the damages and losses of climate change continue to increase every year without action, the global community is still trying to deliver on the 2009 pledge to mobilize only $100 billion annually from developed countries.
We need to take a closer look at the challenges facing current climate finance. At the same time, we need to look beyond this one pledge, to new mechanisms for financing a just and green transition.
A paradigm shift in climate finance is needed, a Climate Finance 2.0. This new paradigm can focus on some key issues.
One such issue is infrastructure. Large-scale infrastructure projects are crucial to unleashing much-needed renewables, as well as decarbonizing industrial processes that are increasingly difficult to electrify around the world. But project deployment has been slow, and projects have suffered from a lack of public funding, long lead times, challenges faced in permitting processes, administrative hurdles, and issues with regarding public acceptance.
Another issue is the definition of projects “of common interest” that are eligible for climate financing. An international mechanism channeling capital to projects of common interest could create a global seal of approval, send positive signals to the market and mobilize more private capital even directly. projects or in associated projects that rely on shared infrastructure.
These are not just examples, but a vision, and a possible reality. Now more than ever we need action and leadership. This is why it is important to show all the solutions that actually exist today, highlighting their many benefits, and create better stories for climate action as a positive for the climate but also for in countries, cities, communities. This is also why we are at COP27.
We are on a trajectory for 2.8 degrees instead of 1.5. The slogan for COP26 in Glasgow is “keeping 1.5 alive” – this is now on life support. However, every day we see new and innovative solutions to climate and environmental crises that the global community is trying to solve.
Seeing is believing. Now let’s get them funding.
Dan Kammen is a sustainability professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He served at the World Bank as chief technical specialist for renewable energy, and as the Obama administration’s science envoy. He has been the coordinating lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1999. Twitter: @dan_combs.
Frederic Hauge founded Bellona in 1986, at the age of 20. Through academic work, legal action, and non-violent activism, Bellona changed opinion and set the agenda for environmental issues in Norway for nearly three decades. decades. Hauge was elected in 2007 as vice chairman of the European Commission’s Technology Platform for CO2 sequestration (ZEP). In the same year TIME Magazine named him “Hero of the Environment”. In 2009 he became a board member of the EU Biofuel Platform (EBTP), and one of the founding partners of the Sahara Forest Project.
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