How will we achieve the Paris Agreement?

Last week Tuesday I was at a meeting and was listening to H.E. Sanna Marin Prime Minister of Finland, in my opinion, the most courageous and ambitious political leader of Europe in leading her country to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Her conclusion that the whole world should work together on this global crisis hit the point. The issue is that even in Europe, where consensus is far to seek, she stands out strong on principle. Maybe once again Finland will show the way and be at the forefront of Climate Action.

As visible in the UN report, it seems that none of the EU members or the other large Carbon emitter countries have any concrete policy in place which shows that their country will achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement by 2030.

Going forward, an old friend, Idar Kreutzer from Finans Norge mentioned that in his opinion, the changes have to take place in 

• Sustainable finance
• Public procurement (green and innovative)
• Green transformation (here not only Technology and Finance is the key, but also the people and their way of life)

It seems that the investments in Carbon absorption activities have doubled compared to the last decade but we still have a long way to go.

Interestingly Marcus Wallenberg mentioned that he foresees that financial institutions like Banks should keep in consideration that soon they will be forced to change faster than they anticipate because of regulatory changes and these new regulations will also prevent ‘green washing’. On other hand, he also mentioned that the financial sector will need support from the government to transform.

But there seems to be one important point missing in all these discussions and that is Nature-based solutions, which we at CLC have chosen it to be one of the key elements to focus on this year. The sorts of alternative solutions being looked into to make us aligned to Paris Agreements are:

• Solar Economy
• Hydrogen Economy
• Circular Economy
• And Nature-based solutions

Apparently, quite a lot has been achieved since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. Especially there has been progress on low-carbon solutions and markets are transforming faster than most people realize.

The statement of H.E. Jyrki Katainen, whom I had met a few years ago at a UN Climate Summit in NYC that Public financing will not be enough to reach the Paris Agreement is very true. But then I fear that just like the Sub-Prime Crisis, we will end up in a situation when the public money will be used to repair or compensate for the immense damage which is being caused by the wrong investments of the financial sector.

 Thus to summarize, despite the rising awareness and all the scientific reports, the ground-level facts remain as follows.

• To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement by 2030, the Political leaders of each and every country will have to take unprecedented steps, which will mean implementing unpopular policies. 
• Despite so much movement of funds towards Green and Impact Investment, still little is reaching the actual projects and investment areas and the Co2 emission and damage to the environment is going on at an ever-increasing speed. 
• And lastly, although our governments and industrial leaders are making the commitments to fulfill the commitments made in the Paris Agreement, the financial sector is investing towards a 5 to 7C rise. A concrete example is that we might all have a strong opinion on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, but it is our own European Pension Funds that are directly and indirectly responsible for 30% of it.

My conclusion is that the greatest threat to mankind not achieving Paris Agreement is the lack of vision and courage of the present political leaders.