Net Zero and 2050
Many trillions of dollars are at stake when it comes to responding to future climate change. In 2016, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, through its New Climate Economy project, estimated that $90 trillion will need to be spent by 2030 on sustainable infrastructure alone.
In the normal course of business, massive due-diligence would be demanded by seasoned investors in assessing and responding to a risk requiring this level of spending. Despite this, it appears that few businesses have carried out such due diligence regarding climate risk. One reason for that is the misconception that international bodies such as the IPCC and the UNFCCC have already carried out such an analysis. Nothing could be further from the truth, given the considerable differences between conventional investor due-diligence and scientific knowledge-assessment. The failure to account for the differences between these frameworks is exposing not only assets, but lifestyles and even our families, to ever-increasing levels of climate risk.
We do not make this assertion lightly. The members of our multi-disciplinary team, along with an ever-growing international network, have devoted thousands of hours to the subject matter; some have devoted their entire careers. Based on this expertise we have prepared a series of short videos to explore the contrasts between conventional business due-diligence and scientific-assessment. The videos lay out the rarely acknowledged potential consequences of climate change that the world, including business leaders and investors, must face.
To access the first video click on the image below. For the subsequent videos click on the hyperlinks below the introductory video. A final video is embedded farther down the page.
Other videos in the series:
Two critical findings have emerged from our analysis:
1. Per the IPCC definition, “Net Zero” refers only to the net release (i.e., emissions minus uptake) of greenhouse gases and aerosols directly associated with human activities. But even that would not be sufficient to halt climate change given feedbacks that have already gotten underway. Thawing permafrost, for example, is increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the same time that the natural uptake of carbon by forests and the oceans is falling.
2. While the metric for international negotiations and targets is average global temperature change over an entire year, the most important risks of climate change are associated with climate variability over much shorter timeframes. Risks from extreme events including flooding, drought, wildfire, and more, are increasing much more rapidly than annualized average global temperature.
Due diligence would suggest that failing to take these and other factors into account, and failing to act aggressively enough to moderate the increasing rate of extreme events, risks triggering irreversible tipping points. Such tipping points could have catastrophic implications for many nations, economic sectors, and ecosystems that are essential for societal well-being.
We are happy to address pertinent questions and explain in detail these and other inter-related considerations. We also have additional materials and white-papers we are happy to share. A brief overview of the team is available through the Team page at top right.
The Climate Web
Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to point you to a resource that we believe can significantly advance business due diligence objectives regarding climate risk. The Climate Web, originally developed as a business decision-support tool, is based on more than 20,000 hours of knowledge curation representing the work of thousands of experts. You can more learn about the Climate Web through the links at right. In particular:
- The Fat-Tailed Risk Roadmap page available to the top right is one of many Topical Roadmaps into the Climate Web, and organizes a great deal of relevant information.
- The Doing Your Due Diligence page also at top right illustrates in greater detail how the Climate Web can support climate-related due diligence.
With respect to the specific topic why we tend to under-estimate climate risk, and the potential implications of that under-estimation, some of the most relevant analysis available in the Climate Web is presented in the video shown here:
