Climate Reset Track

 
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The climate crisis is at a tipping point. Urgent action is needed to avert irreversible and catastrophic consequences. Whilst lockdowns may have provided a small silver lining by temporarily slowing carbon emissions due to reduced activity across the economy, what we need to see now are structural changes in our entire economic, energy, transport and food systems. Without these structural changes, we will quickly rebound to old ways of living and working.

Important Questions to Consider

As governments consider fiscal stimuli to reboot economies and businesses across industries work to recover, how can we use this opportunity to accelerate the transformation of our economies to address the climate emergency? How do we need to think differently about this opportunity in different parts of the world, global North and global South? And how do we ensure a just transition, combining climate with goals of poverty reduction and equality?

2020: The Year of Climate Action

2020 was hailed as the year of climate action. Before the pandemic, governments including the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Japan committed to net-zero carbon targets for their economies. Net-zero includes both efforts to reduce carbon emissions through shifting to renewable energy and electrifying transport, and to remove emissions from the atmosphere through the use of technologies and nature-based solutions (e.g. protecting existing forests which act as carbon sinks). An increasing number of companies in different industries began committing to net-zero targets, and there was momentum behind coordinated action across governments, business, academia and civil society.

A Critical Opportunity to Reset

Countries around the world are now grappling with many other priorities as they identify ways forward from the pandemic. The UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), which is a critical global venue for progress on international efforts in addressing the climate crisis, was due to take place in November 2020 in Glasgow but has been postponed until November 2021.

The good news is that investing in areas like clean infrastructure, retrofitting buildings, sustainable agriculture and ecosystem regeneration combine long-term benefits for the climate and short-term benefits for the economy, particularly in terms of addressing unemployment. This means we have a critical opportunity to reset, to re-evaluate and to create positive visions for the future of the many systems contributing to and impacted by the climate crisis.

Potential Project Questions

Consider some of the following questions or projects within this Track:

  • How do we reconcile growth and climate impacts? How can green recovery packages enable both economic and climate goals to be met?

  • How can regenerative and nature-based approaches be accelerated?

  • How might particular industries (fashion, food, energy, consumer goods, electronics) adopt circular and regenerative business models?

  • How can different industries that are “hard to abate” (trucking, aviation, shipping, steel) make progress in addressing the climate crisis?

  • How can we rethink what constitutes a city in ways that improve our lives?

  • How can different interconnected systems (food, health, energy, transport) become resilient? What can we learn from the experience of the pandemic to take forward?

  • How can structural shifts in ways of working contribute to addressing the climate crisis?