{"id":4260,"date":"2019-09-29T19:36:46","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T19:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=4260"},"modified":"2019-09-29T19:36:46","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T19:36:46","slug":"titans-of-business-and-politics-pledge-to-fight-global-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=4260","title":{"rendered":"Titans of business and politics pledge to fight global warming"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Bloomberg\/New York<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Millions of people in 170 countries took to the streets to protest. World leaders lined up at the UN to pledge action. A 16-year-old girl, close to tears, shamed them for robbing her of a future.
\nThe pressure to act on climate change is mounting. Titans of global business and politics gathered in New York this week for a series of events, including an unprecedented UN summit and the Bloomberg Global Business Forum, to acknowledge that more must be done \u2013 but fell short of saying exactly what will be done.
\n\u201cTime is running out in the court of public opinion, because time is running out to address climate change,\u201d New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told heads of state and business chiefs at the Global Business Forum on Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s right for them to hold our feet to the fire.\u201d
\nThe stakes have indeed never been higher. Temperatures have already risen 1 degree Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1880s. The world must limit that warming to no more than 2 degrees above Industrial Revolution levels, the UN has warned, to avoid the most catastrophic of droughts, floods, mass migrations and conflicts. \u201cYou can just feel the groundswell of popular sentiment, that the urgency of this is elevated,\u201d Goldman Sachs Group Inc chief executive David Solomon said during the forum.
\nWhen asked whether there\u2019s enough information out there to determine his own bank\u2019s exposure to climate change, Solomon said, \u201cWe\u2019re working on it. The answer is we\u2019re working on it.\u201d It was a response that underscored both the heightened awareness among leaders that they will be held responsible for global warming and the work that still lays ahead of them.
\nThe meetings were still \u201cfar too much a chance for people to beat their chests and say they\u2019re making change,\u201d said Brad Cornell, a business professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. \u201cBut who is making real change?\u201d
\nThe UN pointed to some change that came from its Monday summit: 77 countries committed to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2050; 70 countries pledged to bolster climate action plans by 2020; more than 100 business leaders aligned themselves with the goals of the international Paris climate agreement; and 12 countries vowed to contribute to a fund to help developing countries adapt to climate change.
\nNobody says that\u2019s enough. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who organised the summit and called on world leaders to announce real plans at it, said as presentations concluded, \u201cWe need more concrete plans.\u201d
\nThe UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report Wednesday with alarming findings on fast-accelerating and potentially irreversible deterioration of oceans and glaciers.
\nWhile some of the world\u2019s most powerful leaders sounded off on climate in New York, a UN panel convened almost 400 miles (600 kilometres) away in Montreal to continue a years-long debate over curbing emissions from airplanes. The group may decide on what kind of system to use to regulate them \u2013 a laborious and highly political process that went largely unmentioned in Manhattan. And yet there were signs in New York that the tide is turning in favor of real action.
\nAt the conclusion of Monday\u2019s annual meeting of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, an industry-supported group that also met in New York, the majority of the member CEOs stuck around for a discussion on climate change. In all, nine were present at the talk, including the bosses of Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp who faced questions from students and activists as well as reporters.
\n\u201cAnd they were listening,\u201d according to Felipe Bayon, CEO of Colombia\u2019s state-run oil giant Ecopetrol. \u201cI\u2019m very encouraged. As a citizen of the world, I think that a lot of things are possible.\u201d
\nCredited for inspiring the millions of young people who\u2019ve rallied around climate change in recent days is Greta Thunberg. The teenage activist sailed to New York on a zero-emissions boat, climbed the stage at the UN summit and told the crowd of more than 300 presidents, prime ministers, CEOs, bankers and delegates that they\u2019ve let down her entire generation by not acting on climate change. \u201cYou have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,\u201d she said on Monday. \u201cHow dare you!\u201d
\nAnand Mahindra, chairman of India\u2019s Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, said Thunberg gives him hope, as do all of the young people calling for change. It took the youth of the 1960s protesting the Vietnam War to wake everyone up to the fact that the war needed to end, Mahindra said. He\u2019s hopeful, he said, that they can do it again to win the fight against climate change.
\nThe movement grew so big that even US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a myth and vowed to pull America out of the Paris pact, made an unexpected appearance at the UN summit. He stayed for 15 minutes and didn\u2019t speak. China President Xi Jinping didn\u2019t attend the summit at all \u2013 leaving the leaders of the world\u2019s two largest polluters visibly absent from the presenters\u2019 list.
\nDuring the Global Business Forum on Wednesday, business leaders repeatedly pointed the finger at government to step up and dictate what should be done. \u201cThe more there\u2019s a clear policy framework,\u201d Solomon said, \u201cthe more you\u2019ll get a reaction and response.\u201d
\nSamir Assaf, CEO of global banking and markets at HSBC Holdings Plc, had one idea: \u201cThe private sector can provide debt, and national development banks can provide guarantees.\u201d To which moderator Christine Lagarde, the incoming president of the European Central Bank, responded: \u201cSo, the public takes the risk and the private takes the profits.\u201d
\nGreen investments are proving to be less of a risk and more of a moneymaker. Solar and wind power costs have plunged so deeply that they\u2019re now the cheapest and most profitable form of new electricity in two-thirds of the world. CEOs of corporations worldwide are saving billions by cutting their plastic waste, using less, cleaner and cheaper energy and recycling.
\nThe world will face a serious test next year. Under the Paris agreement, countries are expected to submit new, and ideally more ambitious, climate action plans every five years. The next presentations are due in 2020.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s an enormous gulf right now,\u2019\u2019 said Kelly Levin, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute in Washington, \u201cbetween current momentum and where we need to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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