Name: The cost of getting to Net Zero
Uploaded: 2021-12-08
Duration: 8 min 9 s
Description: The price to save the planet is in the trillions and but the path forward is still unclear.

The price to save the planet is in the trillions and but the path forward is still unclear.

The cost of getting to Net Zero

Environment

How much will it cost to save the planet?

the big goal is to keep the temperature from rising Above 1.5°C by the end of this century, in order to do that, the world knows that we have to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and we have to almost have missions within the next decade. This is going to cost trillions of dollars. It's going to be huge reshaping with the global economy. And one of the big question now is, who is going to pay for this? Mhm. I think you've got to begin by unpacking the financial figures because people, you know, people say it was three trillion a year, 100 million a year. To think of it this way Over the next 30 years, the world may have to invest about $3 trillion a year in building a new green economy. And at the core of that is a much bigger electricity system, much better insulated buildings, you know, new ships, new steel mills, etcetera. And by the way about, you know, three quarters of a billion of that is offset by the fact that you stop investing on the fossil fuel side. Within that there's a bit which may be more problematic. I don't know the exact amount, but it's several hundreds of billions, which has to flow to developing countries where it may be less easy to mobilize those private flows of capital. Then within that figure come down to the sort of figure, which is many tens of billions or maybe 100 billion, which really has to be grand subsidies. The rich developed world paying the developing world to do things which aren't economic not saying here I'm going to invest but get a perfectly good rate of return, but we want you to close down coal mines before their end of useful life that's going to cost you something. We're going to help you do it. I have said many times before and I repeat again that delivering 100 billion is absolutely a matter of trust when we get into whose responsibility is to pay for it. One thing that came up from the beginning of Glasgow was this sort of $100 billion which hung over the event like smog and it was for developed countries to developing countries $100 billion a year to help them adapt to the impact of climate change right now on finance, We are $20 billion dollars short Of the 100 billion. And this commitment even then Might only be met in 2023 on adaptation. Arab station finance remains only 25%,, Not the 50 50 split that was promised nor needed given the warming that has already taken place on this earth, the funding for decarbonization is going to have to come from a lot of different places and ultimately it's probably going to have to be a real combination of both private and public funding and technical assistance. Part of the 100 billion U. S dollars would be accessed through the human carnage funds, everything that we do. We don't implement projects or programs or we implement through partnerships that are prioritized by the complete we have one support that we are providing to Malawi morale. It's a least developed country in africa subject to seasonal flooding, a lot of other weather events. While we are providing a network of both hydrological and meteorological uh system through which the garda information about climate and historical data, use that to provide climate information and no taliban. So you translate the climate data into information that it's usable and translatable to the communities. So this is this is quite good in terms of not only improving uh the information to the various stakeholders but also having timely information they can easily plan and it can also warn them in the event of a common uh disaster. Because if you have these predictions then you'll be able to do some evil creation can proper planning for for the communities In order to have any hope of meeting the goal of keeping emissions to around 1.5 by the end of the century, there's a few things that need to happen that most people agree on one of those is cold productions. It really needs to be completely phased out in the next couple of decades. Another thing is, you know, we need to reduce methane which is far more powerful In the atmosphere than carbon emissions. Co two emissions and then we have kind of these bigger structural shifts at the core of the real economy, Things like shipping, concrete, feel how all of this happens In September, we put out a report called, you know, keeping 1.5° alive. Closing the gap and the background to this was as the presidency team of cop 26 the U. K. Government team pulled together all of what are called the NBCS, the nationally determined contributions, the commitments that each nation has made. It was clear that in total they were not big enough to get the reductions in the 2020 is that we need because we need not only to get to net zero by mid century, we need ideally To get emissions down from sort of 40 gigatons today to order of magnitude 22 by 2030. So what our report said is what are believable actions, which could close that gap by far the biggest actually relates to stopping deforestation and starting reforestation number two was beginning the exit from existing coal, not getting rid of all existing cold, but beginning the exit from existing coal, number three was accelerating the process of road transport, electrification. There was then one on cutting methane leaks, one on accelerating progress in hard to abate sectors like steel and cement and shipping and the other was accelerating energy productivity or efficiency improvements where we know there's lots to go for but really quite slow progress. So we set our report that says, look, this is possible. Look at the technologies, look at the costs, they're manageable. Let's see how close we can get to this at Glasgow to close the gap. And a lot of the focus at Glasgow was whether in addition to the formal, nationally determined contributions, there could also be coalitions of the willing, of particular countries signing up to commitments, which would take us some way to close that gap. For me, the question is not, whether or not things are changing, things are changing, money is starting to move, countries are making commitments. You know, the ship is starting to turn. The question is really whether or not it's going fast enough. We have a goal by 2050 and we have a goal by 2030 have emissions and that is an incredibly short time period. And from now on, every single year needs to be a race to meet that goal and and the fake couldn't be higher. You know, it's human life, it's our existence as we know it. That's on the line here