If you liked it then you shoulda put a price on it

I just received a message from LinkedIn congratulating me on having more than 4,000 followers now. Not counting the three Twitter accounts I already forgot about, an Instagram account I rarely use, and a Facebook account I opened to receive wedding photos where I was a bridesmaid, I am not a social media person. I admit I am annoyed by social media and by those who regularly report their mundane activities. Yet, I love LinkedIn. It is a place where we learn from each other, follow industry news, seek technical solutions, network for new ventures, and reconnect with old colleagues while making new friends. It is a brilliant tool and honestly, every morning when I open my eyes, I face the dilemma of checking it first or doing my meditation.

Do I post often enough? I suppose not. There were years when posting more on LinkedIn was among my New Years' resolutions, yet I did not even post once a month most of those years. I skip most seminars, webinars, and conferences I attend, rarely praise completed projects, and never mention names or post photos with VIPs. I have a very old-fashioned profile picture taken by a friend in my backyard during COVID. How I reached 4,000+ followers is a mystery. Apparently, a significant number of people trust my vision and are happy to follow the progress of me and our company, Gaia Climate. So THANK YOU again!

Dear followers, as your new and shy influencer I have one last thing to ask you. We are now at a historical moment as critical institutions contemplate the fate of our battle against climate change. The climate crisis is now the top agenda item in everyone’s life, anywhere in the world. We have been advocating the need to put a price on carbon for many years. It is estimated that we need to mobilize more than $4 trillion USD annually to invest in GHG reduction technologies until 2030 to keep the temperature increase below 1.5 degrees. Unfortunately, only 21 percent of that is achieved now.

It is very simple; most climate mitigation technologies are not bankable and will not be an option for investors unless carbon finance supports them. I am afraid to say this, but I will: this system also helps the polluter to pay. When the price includes the entire social and economic cost of climate change, this payment will be high enough for polluters to choose between reducing emissions in-house or elsewhere. That decision will be based on the marginal abatement cost of reduction. The climate does not care where you reduce the emissions; it cares that every dollar you spend generates the highest amount of REAL reduction. And we are working hard to make it REAL.

Yes, there are flaws and misconduct, but that does not change the fact that putting a price on carbon is not the wrong way. It is the right way. We see that it is the right way every day because our partners, clients, and stakeholders need innovative finance to bring their brilliant projects to life. These projects aim at making a difference by generating power from renewables, flaring methane from biogas, or planting mangroves without any revenue expectation except for carbon revenue.

We understand that there are bad apples. Carbon is a new class of financial asset, and we are all learning how to better underwrite it by improving methods and protocols. Remember how toxic mortgage assets failed the global economy through bad underwriting in 2008? Yet, no key player in finance gave up on investing in mortgage funds because housing is an essential need for humankind. So is climate and ecosystem health. We are now asking you to be there for the climate and the planet and be wise enough to follow your conscience rather than rhetoric that seeks charity and non-business action to defend the ecosystem. We live in a world run by markets, and only this is a strong reason to believe that a Net Zero world can only be achieved through market-based instruments and carbon pricing. ?We are here to stay until the climate has a price and the polluters are either encouraged or enforced to fully pay for it.

PS:? I am attaching a cat photo here as well because I heard that it is the best way of getting attention on social media. ?It will also hopefully lighten the mood!

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