COP26 Diaries: Day 2

The Better Way to Do Everything?

I can?say?that Day 2 at COP26 was far more eventful.?There were some great new pledges and some promising new steps that were revealed, which I will touch upon in a?minute, but I want to start by?telling you about?a?more?personal experience?from the night before.?

I attended?a CEO event organized by the global management consulting firm McKinsey; where I had a chance to talk to some of the key leadership in business.?

Bob Sternfels, McKinsey’s current managing partner, spoke in detail about the transformation in his company. Bob is?very aware of the changing tides in business. He is also?proud of the company’s net zero target of 2030?and?willing to carry?that ambition?to?his?clients. What he said was that?he saw it?no longer?as?business, but as a?responsibility.?

Another very interesting conversation I had was with M. Sanjayan, the CEO of?Conservation International. Sanjayan said that with the speed of global change, battery technologies were becoming incredibly cost-efficient. He said it reminded him of the massive drop in costs in solar panels—a similar battery revolution may be ahead.?

In addition to some CEO-socializing, I also had the great pleasure of listening to Al?Gore’s keynote speech. Back in the day,?Gore was one of the key figures—if not the central one—that brought climate efforts to the public’s attention.?The Inconvenient Truth?was monumental in its impact.?He is currently leading Generation, an investment management firm that focuses on sustainable investment. Generation?recently?launched Just?Climate;?an investment business dedicated to climate-led investing that aims?to broaden the flow of capital to climate solutions.?Some of Generation’s funds are also focused on coming up with technologies?after?a net zero economy is achieved. That?is?how forward-looking Gore’s plans are.?

It was insightful to listen to Gore. As a man who had?been there since almost the very beginning, his experience?in?the trenches of the climate fight carries?a lot?of lessons?for the rest of us.?Since 2000, when the Florida vote turned out in his rival’s favor by just about over 500 votes, I?have?always wondered what kind of a world we’d be living in now if it was Gore that took the presidency that night.?Undoubtedly, it would have been a very different one.

Gore was?very well-informed?about where we were right now;?and?the numbers he gave us were dark and dreary, but real.?We emit 160 million tons of carbon daily, and these are trapped in the?troposphere. He offered a very interesting statistic here—if you wanted to travel through?troposphere, and used one of the latest electric Tesla cars, it would take about five minutes to cover it. That’s?all the space we have for billions and billions of tons in emissions.?

Now?our oceans and our forests?are highly endangered, it is getting increasingly difficult to absorb these emissions. Gore mentioned that we are fast running towards unhabitable lands—12 of the 14 greatest fires in U.S. history occurred in the last 7 months. If things?proceed as they are, soon, we are looking at over 1 billion climate refugees. For comparison, the war in Syria created over 6 million.?

Gore did have some hope. He told us that over the last year, 90% of all new capacity investments in energy were of the solar kind. And if we can reach a net-zero economy, it will be surprisingly possible to go back on our damage: within three or?four?years after going net-zero, the warming stops; and in about 25 to 30 years, the earth begins to absorb the carbon.??

SPIRIT OF INNOVATION

On that note of hope, I want to share with you another interesting COP26 moment.

A key aspect of the summit is innovation, and companies are there to present their latest, sustainable technologies.?I had the chance to see?the “Spirit of Innovation”—the all-electric plane?by?Rolls Royce. On display in the Green Zone,?the Spirit is like?a window into the future.?I have been aware of some of the sustainability measures the company is taking up, like mixing conventional fuel with “sustainable aviation fuel” that is mostly?made from?crops and animal fats, but the Spirit is an eye-opening new piece of technology.?

Despite the Spirit’s popularity, the CEO, Warren East, was honest about the difficulty ahead. To go back to a non-mobile world without planes or ships is out of?the?question. There are a couple ways to make things greener: according to East, synthetic fuels that are made from?a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen?can be used, but these are yet to be widely distributed. The rate of use in these are so low that they do not yet make an impact. There is quite a distance to go there, for now, and it cannot be achieved without governments taking some initiative on the matter.?

A second solution follows the Spirit, but that too is still a long way ahead. Yes, it’s possible; but not near. Still, I find these innovations to be encouraging—if aviation, one of the highest emitters, can find new ways to look at old problems; there is hope for most of us.??Like Thomas Edison said, there is a better way to do everything.?

Now?that I ran over the personal?highlights, here’s some of the?key moments?of COP’s second day?that I see as key developments:

• ?United States decided?to rejoin the High Ambition Coalition at the UN climate talks, an intergovernmental coalition that seeks to make the 1.5C scenario possible.?After a brief hiatus during the Trump presidency, it’s good to see that America is back on the table for climate efforts.?
• There was also the welcomed news that almost 90 countries have joined a U.S.- and EU-led effort to?reduce methane emissions?30% by 2030 from 2020 levels. Considering the let down during G20, this was a step forward in the right direction.?
• Another big player joined the fight at COP26:?India pledged to a target of net zero emissions by 2070. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also announced that the country was aiming to get half of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.?Through my work with Ar?elik, I had the chance to be heavily involved with India over the past few years, and I can assure you that this is good news.?
• We should not however feel like these pledges can magically improve the current crisis. As the?UN Secretary General António Guterres reminded us all just the day before, these targets may set up the “illusion” of a turn-around in the climate crisis, but we are still headed for a climate disaster. “We are digging our graves,” Guterres said during his speech. What we have here, still, is only a start; but you can’t achieve anything unless you start somewhere.?
• A key incident that was immensely significant to me was the historic decision on forestation. World leaders—including those of China, U.S and Brazil—agreed on a multi-billion-dollar?package to stop deforestation. Hopefully,?that global consensus soon translates into some concrete action and preservation of green areas become a priority among governments and citizens alike.?