Scary, Hopeful, Urgent…
An emotional rollercoaster with a key call to action.
Read our bite sized takeaways of the impressive New York Times Climate Forward conference held at the Conduit Club during London Climate Week 2022.
After a couple of days collecting our thoughts, the Conduit Connect team compared notes about our learnings from the New York Times Climate Forward Conference held at the Conduit last week. We each picked the sessions that stood out the most, and the facts that filled us with fear, urgency, inspiration, and ultimately hope. Note that this is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all the sessions, and some quotes are paraphrased.
Scary 😟
Climate scientist – Johan Rockström started off the conference with some “not good news.”
Since 2020 we should have been reducing our global emissions by 7% per year to achieve a 50% reduction by 2030. For the last two years we have not achieved this.
The window to secure the Paris Agreement is rapidly shutting.
“The scientific support is very strong for the earth’s pulse to be very weak [by 2050.]”
1.5 degrees is not a goal. It’s a limit. It’s a threshold. It’s a planetary boundary. Even 1.5 is dangerous.
There is a 50% risk that we will already be hitting 1.5 degrees in the next 5 years.
Halfway to COP27: What’s New and What’s Next. Watch it here
Before you jump off a cliff, there was some good news, and some hopeful news, and more inspiring stories than we can count…
Hopeful 😊
In the Conduit Reading Room Phoebe Tickell, Founder of Moral Imaginations gave us some great news which highlighted the critical importance of educating young people about climate change:
67% of business leaders have made climate positive changes to their practices because of conversations with their children.
91% of teachers feel strongly about climate change.
Changing Human Behaviour, Mind-Sets and Culture for Climate Progress
Urgent opportunity 🌍
James Mwangi, Founder, Climate Action Platform Africa reminded us that:
“Africa has probably contributed the least to the Climate predicament but will be impacted the most.”
It has the world’s youngest population.
“2.5billion people taking a ‘business as usual path’ vs taking a more climate aware pathway is 12 billion tonnes a year of additional emissions a year. Truly leapfrogging to an energy efficient future is a mission critical investment challenge for the whole world.”
Africa: Climate Vanguard, Not Climate Victim Watch the whole Conduit x SYSTEMIQ Solution Stage recording to hear about some optimistic and practical solutions from solar irrigation to anaerobic digestion and sustainable fertiliser.
Passionate ❤️
In a passionate plea, the panellists urged governments, private investors and consumers to prioritise the transition from fossil fuels, if not for the “sake of the climate, then at least for the sake of peace and security.”
Referring to the war in Ukraine François Gemenne said “If we achieved the energy transition 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation today”.
“The way we spend our money is a deep perversity in the system.” said Sandrine Dixson-Declève.
The private sector needs to fund clean energy.
We must try to avoid unholy dependencies.
Brave leadership is what’s required.
We need a good migration technology.
War, Peace and Climate Change. Watch it here
Inspiring 💡
Mafalda Duarte, CEO of Climate Investment Funds, set the example of bringing risk capital to fund renewables in emerging markets, while Mark Campanale, Founder of Carbon Tracker Initiative, supplied us with numerous optimistic fun facts.
Mafalda Duarte reminded us that back in 2008 only 8% of our energy was renewable energy. A lot of progress has been made!
“The biggest change in the last 30 years of green finance is that “Renewables has broken through as the cheapest form of energy in most, if not all, parts of the world. Renewables is growing 20% per annum globally,[…] and that’s set to reach 40% by 2030.” - Mark Campanale
Another fun fact “if this growth continues for the next 6 years, wind and solar capacity will reach 8,000gw hours which, in 20 years, is more than all the fossil fuel capacity that we’ve built over the last century.”
We need to subsidise efficiency and renewables, not fossil fuels.
There is £300billion in cash ISAs. We can all affect where that is invested.
Greenbacking the Future: Private Sector Finance and Climate. Watch it here
To conclude, the overarching sentiment was clear. We need to catalyse private capital, public capital, and all our geniuses towards the energy transition. This involves divesting from fossil fuels and investing in the real opportunity that is a sustainable, renewable infrastructure, particularly in less developed markets.