How to Speed Up Net-Zero Transition

Up to this point, the industry still hasn’t seen the scale and speed it needs to decarbonise, according to the World Economic Forum’s article “Predictions 2022: CEOs and top leaders share tactics that will speed the net zero transition.”

The window to limit global warming to 2°C is closing. Governments, business leaders, innovators, and civil society need to step up the transition to a net-zero energy source and take immediate and long-term climate actions to align with the Paris Agreement.

Industries like aviation, shipping, steel and cement manufacturing, and the transport sector are major economic powerhouses and contribute almost one-third of the energy global CO2 emissions and are expected to double under business-as-usual scenarios.

But studies have shown that it is both technically and economically possible for these two industries to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Technologies needed to transition to the clean industry are already developed, and the cost will be less than 0.5% of the global GDP.

Achieving the scale and speed required to transition to clean energy requires strong multi-stakeholder partnership and cooperation to build the technical and financial solutions necessary for a systems change.

The World Economic Forum’s Climate Initiative supports the scaling and acceleration of global climate action through public and private-sector collaboration. WEF reached out to top business leaders like Dow, BASF, Boston Consulting Group, and many others to share their strategies to speed up the transition to net-zero.

Their suggestions include the following:

• Incentivise and support clean hydrogen. Although there is much debate surrounding the green and blue and other types or ‘colours’ of hydrogen businesses, hydrogen is a strong zero-emission energy source when carbon or other GHG emitted during the process are captured and stored. Promoting and scaling-up the acceptance and use of hydrogen would need policies to incentivise, fund, and build the required infrastructure.
• Take pledges and commitments further, especially those focused on deforestation, land-use change, and biodiversity loss. But these efforts need to be coordinated for the most far-reaching and efficient impact, according to Melanie Maas Geesteranus, CEO, of Porticus.
• Look beyond net-zero finance. In addition to divesting in fossil fuels or decarbonising portfolios, businesses owning these hydrocarbon assets needs to stay invested in facilitating the transition of these ‘brown assets’ to green by investing heavily in renewable capacity and being responsible owner and creditor or existing hydrocarbon assets as they are wound back.

• Embrace new approaches to collaboration. The speed and the decreasing cost of green technologies and renewable technologies offer significant opportunities to businesses. One way to take advantage of this is to take a partnership approach.
  
  Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Catalyst is a coalition of businesses, governments, philanthropies, and individuals that invest directly in companies for them to be able to deploy decarbonisation technologies. Organizations like these models how partnerships can help accelerate the transition to net-zero.

• Embraced standards and methodologies. Determining a product’s carbon footprint or PCFs can guide people’s decisions when making choices to help stabilize the climate.

According to WEF, there is no sufficient standardised specification to determine PFCs; however, a German multinational company, BASF, has developed a powerful digital solution that calculates PCFs from the ‘cradle-to-gate.’ This method to calculate emissions can help companies and businesses identify emission reduction potentials.

“Only with the correct information at hand can we take effective action,” says Dr Marin Brudermüller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE.

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Predictions 2022: CEOs and top leaders share tactics that will speed the net zero transition