Opinion
Mint Quick Edit Can the market play a pro-climate role?
Summary
- As John Kerry reminded his audience at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, capping global warming remains a big challenge. As carbon emissions keep rising and the US looks set to flip its climate policy, can market forces make up for deficiencies of policy?
“We are blowing past 1.5° Celsius right now," said John Kerry, former US secretary of state and till recently the US president’s climate envoy, at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
“What is it about humanity that when we know we are facing something existential, we can’t do the things we know we ought to?"
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Global warming could be held at 1.7° Celsius if all promises were met, he added, “but we are not doing what we know we should do."
True. The world needs to bend its rising curve of carbon emissions, a goal that’s proving elusive. Adding to the challenge, US climate policy is likely to flip back into neglect mode next year.
While this would be a setback, it needn’t be quite so bad if market forces keep pushing for a sustainable future.
Also read: Climate change: It’s imperative to wage an evidence-based battle
But can demand—as a force shaped by the choices of aware consumers and business leaders—evoke a big clean-up response? Innovation making clean energy cheaper is a good sign.
Yet, even if we invest hope in a pro-climate market shift, anti-market policies would be in the way.
As free trade gets rolled back, for example, rising barriers against low-cost Chinese exports will retard global clean-tech adoption. Even the market has been dealt a weak hand.
