January 3rd According to a report by the BBC on the 2nd, 2021 is coming amid global cheers and expectations. In the new year, the topic of climate change and global warming will become a hot topic.
United Nations Secretary-General Guterres told Justin Rolat, the BBC’s chief environmental affairs reporter, that he believes that the turning point of climate change to last a lasting victory over negative is this year.
In response, the BBC article listed five reasons why climate change issues may turn around in 2021.
Critical Climate Conference
In 2021, world leaders will gather in Glasgow, Scotland, for the second Global Climate Summit.
The United Nations Climate Summit held in Paris in 2015 is an important milestone for mankind to work together to respond to the climate crisis.
Its significance is that leaders of all countries come together to make commitments and reach agreements on the obligations of countries in the overall protracted war on climate change.
The Paris Agreement establishes the basic framework for international cooperation to combat climate change after 2020, proposes to limit the increase in global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels, and strives to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Glasgow Climate Conference, which should be held in November 2020, has been postponed to 2021.
Therefore, the Glasgow summit provided a platform for discussing increasing carbon emission reductions, which brought a hope.
Many countries commit to increase the intensity and extent of carbon emission reduction
In June 2019, among industrially developed countries, the United Kingdom was the first to announce a legally binding commitment with the goal of zero net greenhouse gas emissions.
The EU followed closely with a similar commitment in March 2020.
Subsequently, Japan and South Korea also joined in achieving “zero emissions” in the middle of this century. The United Nations estimates that there are currently more than 110 countries in this camp.
U.S. President-elect Biden has also announced that he will rejoin the Paris Agreement.
The BBC said that what these countries need to do now is to come up with a specific plan of action, which will be an important topic of the Glasgow summit.
The price of renewable energy is unprecedentedly low.
The article points out that there is an important reason why so many countries have set zero emission targets one after another, that is, the price of renewable energy is low, and the cost calculation method of carbon emission reduction has been completely rewritten.
In October 2020, the International Energy Agency (IEA) concluded that the top solar power generation system is currently called “the cheapest supply in history”.
In most parts of the world, renewable energy generation is often cheaper than fossil energy power generation.
If countries around the world increase their investment in wind, solar and battery in the next few years, the price of renewable energy will continue to decline.
If the price is low to a certain extent, renewable energy prices are expected to become the target of attracting investors and governments, thus accelerating the global decarbonization process and iterative renewal of energy.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything.
The coronavirus pandemic is a reminder that the world is fully likely to be upended in ways beyond human control.
At the same time, the epidemic has also brought strong economic shocks.
Governments have come up with stimulus packages to rescue and revitalize the economy.
The good news is that global interest rates fluctuate around zero and even probe into the negative range.
The cost of the government stimulus package is therefore unprecedentedly low, and it also creates an unprecedented opportunity to “get rid of the old and accept the new” reconstruction.
Business is moving towards green.
Business has also begun to change its business attitude in the face of falling renewable energy prices and public pressure. There is also a strong financial impetus behind it.
If new investments in oil extraction or coal power generation have lost their existential value before they have waited for cost recovery, is such investment necessary? Maybe there should be no carbon risk in the portfolio?
At the same time, there is a surge of power in the business community, which drives businesses to include climate change risk factors in their financial decisions.
Business and investors must be able to prove that they have taken the necessary steps to transition to zero net emissions, and such disclosure is mandatory.
According to the report, 70 central banks are already working to achieve this goal.
Embedding the above requirements into the architecture of the world financial system is a key issue of the Glasgow Congress.
The article concludes that there is reason to hope for the future, but it must also be recognized that there is still a long way to go between vision and reality. The reality is that many countries have made generous commitments, but few countries have formulated action strategies.
The challenge of the Glasgow Conference is to sign up for countries to adopt policies that can reduce carbon emissions immediately.
