Time UN focused on climate solutions
Turning existential threat into driver of innovation requires moving beyond ‘do less harm’
The United Nations will convene a climate summit in New York on Sept 23. Unfortunately, the event will, again, be problem-focused. While well-intended, the focus on just reducing emissions from companies and countries is an approach we must move beyond in order to ensure a solution agenda for climate change in the future.
The current approach by the UN and the World Economic Forum, which is helping it organize the event, is an accounting approach that focuses on commitment from business to reduce emissions. So, when companies, cities and financial institutions attend the UN climate action summit and talk about their contributions, they will focus on their own reductions and how big emitters can reduce their emissions within existing business models, rather than how innovative new products and services lead to reductions in society.
This problem approach is not relevant if we are to deliver the dramatic emission reductions that are needed and ensure delivery on the other sustainable development goals. It is time to move beyond a business-as-usual approach where companies and countries only focus on reducing their existing emissions. We need a solution approach driven by companies, cities, countries and accelerators that focuses on accelerated uptake of innovative and disruptive solutions that will bring about significant changes in how we deliver what society needs.
Many of the significant emission reductions today have been made possible by companies delivering solutions for nutrition, mobility and buildings in different parts of society, while not simply reducing their own emissions. Companies cite examples such as renewable energy, electric cars, dematerialization and virtual meetings, rather than reducing their own emissions.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (with global connectivity, new materials and new business models, and falling prices for many key technologies) provides ample opportunities that could radically reduce emissions by delivering much smarter solutions for mobility (including virtual mobility), building spaces (including virtual spaces) and nutrition (especially when linked to health and well-being).
To accelerate emission reductions, companies, governments and the financial sector cannot be driven primarily by cost and risk reductions in existing systems. They must use their capacity to deliver the kind of innovation that delivers the solutions we need.
Governments need to be able to set targets that support solution providers. Investors need to be able to identify winners in a low/zerocarbon economy (not just avoid the losers). Cities must assess how much they can help emission reduction. What is needed is a shift in emphasis from “doing things less bad” to “doing good things”, but we will also need tools and methods to quantify and compare the impact of different solutions and potential solutions.
By embracing a solution perspective, we will also support companies from traditional sectors and move toward sustainable innovation. Mining companies will shift focus from mines to providing materials in society with sustainable recycling. Automotive companies will move from cars to sustainable mobility, including teleworking and virtual meetings. There are positive signs that we are moving in the right direction, but too slowly. A problem focus will slow us down further.
A number of studies show that experts now see real leadership among companies that try to deliver what society needs. In the report on the GlobeScan-SustainAbility annual survey, The 2017 Sustainability Leaders, two separate eras were identified. The first leadership era, “do less harm”, lasted until 2006. The second era, “sustainable growth”, began in 2007. It is therefore understandable that the UN is lagging behind, but it is time for it to move beyond “do less harm”.
The first era was dominated by big polluters who showed leadership by reporting and focusing on their own pollution, using traditional tools to measure carbon emissions. The UN needs to base future summits on solution frameworks, such as Mission Innovation’s 1.5 C Compatibility Framework.
Establishing new structures, knowledge and tools that support the move toward a service-based circular economy, where companies can assess their positive contributions, can help accelerate a sustainable transition.
Let’s hope that the next summit focuses on solutions and welcomes companies, cities and countries with such focus. The fact that Chile, which will host the global climate meeting in December (COP25), will present solution providers with the potential to reduce emissions by more than 150 million metric tons — more than Chile’s current emissions — is good reason for hope moving forward.
Emerging countries have a special role to play, and hopefully we can see new solution initiatives from countries like Chile, India and China, where companies, countries, the finance sector, cities and accelerators commit to help accelerate the uptake of tomorrow’s sustainable solutions. Such a solution perspective would also provide much-needed optimism for the future and turn the existential threat of climate change into our generation’s driver of innovation.
The author is a senior adviser at Research Institutes of Sweden, a senior associate at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a fellow at the Research Center of Journalism and Social Development at Renmin University of China. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.