The latest measurement of atmospheric CO2 (on March 17 by Scripps Institution of Oceanography): 416.94 ppm; 60 years ago: 315 ppm. Pre-industrialisation, about 250 years ago, it was estimated at 250 ppm (though in ice ages it might have been as low at 160 ppm).
Tackling global warming is effectively a mission to help shift people’s mindsets from a zero-sum game – how do we grow at another’s expense – to a common challenge and find and scale up the technologies to help. It is clear despite the rapid growth in renewable energies over the past few decades and the drop in costs there is still too much of the global economy emitting carbon and other greenhouse gases.
To limit temperature rises to less than 2ºCelsius, therefore, requires tools to remove carbon, capture and use it. Price mechanisms will help scale the innovations developed already and corporate venture capital can unlock and find new entrepreneurs to
partner with.
The past year has seen the enormous progress that is possible when policymakers aligned with universities, entrepreneurs and corporations can achieve together to tackle other global challenges, such as covid-19.
Now is the time to scale up the old and new technologies.
Society does well when old people plant trees they know they will never sit under.
