Dr. Matt Gitsham explains how business leaders are increasingly seeking assistance from policymakers to address the Net Zero challenge
Public consensus on the need to tackle the climate crisis is growing clearer and clearer. But how can this crisis best be tackled? Science and policy have a crucial role to play.
The current climate crisis
The signs of the climate crisis are all around us. Twenty years ago, conversations about climate were about bad things that would happen in the future. But this has become a conversation about bad things happening now and will get worse.
Heatwaves, wildfires, extreme weather events and flooding, air pollution, and changing disease patterns are all consequences of climate change that are already having direct impacts on human health. These aspects of climate change are also disrupting ecosystems, agricultural productivity, and our wider economies.
The climate crisis has arrived.
Climate change: Abate, adapt, or suffer?
In decades past, as the scientific evidence for climate change became clearer and more robust, years were spent discussing what the right global response should be. This was often framed as a choice between abating, adapting, or suffering.
While there have been voices that have doubted the science or argued that whatever warming will be experienced in the future can be lived with, public consensus globally is increasingly in line with the advice of the scientific community: action is needed.
But how far does that action need to be focused on abatement – decarbonizing the global economy to limit global temperature increases or adaptation – investing instead to future-proof human society from the temperature rises that will come?
For a long time, much of the focus has been on abatement. There has been a real fear that if energy is invested in adaptation as well, the pressure to decarbonize might lessen, and what little action has been seen might slow down.
But increasingly, there is recognition that both abatement and adaptation are needed. No matter how successful we are with the Paris Agreement target to limit global temperature rises to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, we will be experiencing warming and will need to invest to adapt to that warming.
The role of science in climate change
Although climate scientists frequently despair that no one listens to them, science has played a profoundly important role in creating a credible body of knowledge that enabled others to become informed and eventually reach a consensus on the need for action and the kinds of action options available.
The working of the IPCC, in particular, has been crucial. By synthesizing the latest scientific research from thousands of peer-reviewed studies into accessible summaries for policymakers and other key decision- makers, this body has helped raise awareness and forge consensus on the need for urgent action. An inclusive, consensus-based approach that ensures diverse perspectives are considered has helped to build credibility and overcome division and political barriers.
The climate crisis: Who should lead?
This growing consensus on the need for both abatement and adaption leads us to the next question: how should action be led? Which kinds of actors and institutions in society should lead it?
The climate crisis is recognized as a ‘wicked problem’ that requires action and leadership from multiple actors and institutions in society.
Alongside the importance of the scientific community in raising awareness and identifying priorities for action, there is a lot of focus, rightly, on the choices we all make as individuals – about our homes, how we get around, what we buy in the supermarket. There is also a lot of focus on business leaders, and the choices made in companies – about how manufacturing processes can be decarbonized, how products and services can be designed to enable sustainable, zero-carbon living, and how investors can allocate capital to accelerate this decarbonization transition.
However, there is also increasing consensus that government policy is crucial. Policy isn’t the answer to everything, but some things can’t be left to individual choice and market forces alone. Government policy has a crucial role in enabling and coordinating behavior change at scale.
A focus on Net Zero policy
Business leaders, for example, are increasingly calling for governments around the world to set ambitious Net Zero targets, phase out fossil fuel subsidies, invest in clean energy technology and infrastructure, and use public funding to de-risk and unlock additional private sector investment. This includes investments in renewable energy, electric vehicles, grid modernization, energy storage, and research and development of new clean energy technologies.
Business leaders are also calling for governments to use policy levers such as minimum standards regulation around transport, homes, and industry to drive innovation toward zero-carbon alternatives. A key policy intervention business leaders are calling for is for governments to put a material price on carbon as a tool to accelerate the allocation of capital toward Net Zero.
And in the years since the Paris Agreement in 2015, we have seen more and more governments around the world start to enact ambitious climate policies like this. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” (1), are good examples of exactly these kinds of policy interventions. Public bodies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2) will have a crucial role to play in assisting the implementation of these policies and maximizing their impact.
Science and policy are crucial to tackling the climate crisis. We need to learn from the experience of the growing number of policy interventions being introduced and scale up what’s working. We have no time to waste.
