We are easily distracted by the short-term fluctuations of political and business trends in the corporate sustainability world. But beyond the noise, it’s the science and the economics that matter. The economics delivers the needed change – or the damage if we fail to act. On that basis, it seems likely that food and agriculture will be the next climate domino to fall. The science is clear that…
Most actions being taken by companies in the name of sustainability or ESG are, at best, irrelevant to the global challenges we face. At worst, they are counterproductive - derailing more substantive action by giving the illusion of progress. They are like personal consumer choices on sustainability - hard to argue against and make those participating feel they are contributing, while having…
Decades in the making, and still denied by the incumbents, the decline of fossil fuels is imminent. No longer a theoretical future risk, this will be a dramatic market impact in the next decade.
We’re living through a virtual tsunami of terrifying climate news. Extreme fire, flood and heat events are smashing records across the globe. Simultaneously, monitoring of various natural processes that regulate our climate indicates unprecedented system changes are underway. As a result, I argue here we have hit a multi-system tipping point – the “crash” that I have long argued would trigger “the…
The climate emergency is now a methane emergency - because only rapid methane reduction will slow the rate of warming at the required speed (< decade). The most effective response is to cut livestock emissions – reduce consumption of beef and dairy and lower methane emissions in production. This means the food and livestock industry, particular beef and dairy, face a truly existential risk. Their…
Every fraction of a degree of warming brings us closer to climate tipping points that if breached, could lead to a runaway process we cannot control. We are teetering on that edge. We need to reset the debate to have a laser focus on the immediate rate of warming and everything that influences it.
We are about to go through the most profound shift in the climate debate in 20 years. The result will be the end of the gas industry’s hope of being a transition fuel, a brutal market disruption to the agriculture and livestock industries and the arrival of the climate emergency into public consciousness. This will all be driven by the acceptance of methane as the critical response to the climate…
COVID 19 is not a ‘black swan’ – a singular, unexpected event. It is the first in a series of what NYT’s Tom Friedman referred to as a ‘herd of stampeding black elephants’ – multiple, predictable and economically catastrophic events. Events that everyone knows are coming but our political and business leaders have consciously chosen not to deal with. Choices have consequences….
On top of the countless human tragedies, there will be many long-lasting social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps none will be more profound though, than the death of free market fundamentalism and the return of the State… COVID-19 presents a blindingly powerful economic case for change. It shows that an ideological, quasi-religious approach to regulating markets, sometimes…
It was always going to come to this. Whether it was a pandemic triggering a shutdown, a climate emergency bursting the carbon bubble, a populist backlash against inequality, wars over water or countless other possible triggers, this moment has long been inevitable. COVID-19 is just like a match thrown on a tinder dry forest floor on a hot windy day and starting a wildfire. The match isn’t the key…
You can pretty much hear it now. It’s like being in a forest and hearing the leaves rustling in the tops of trees, just before the storm hits. Then it comes with a roar, everything shakes, and we look around wondering what will fall – and will it fall on us. This is how I see the global economy and climate change. Everything is ready, everyone knows it’s coming, we’re just waiting for the storm to…
I called this column ‘choosing extinction’ because that is the path we are on today. There is considerable debate whether that extinction applies to us humans, or ‘just’ to millions of other species. But either way a mass extinction event is on the way, unless we choose to stop it.
It has always been clear that fixing climate change would require a massive industrial and technological transformation, with widespread social and economic consequences. The recent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on 1.5 degrees however deeply challenges dominant assumptions about the speed and scale involved. This has profound implications for many industries…
The only rational response to the scientific evidence on climate change, is to declare a global emergency – to mobilise all of society to do whatever it takes to fix it. As the UN Secretary General Guterres recently stated: “We face a direct existential threat”. Failure is really not an option when ‘failure’ means we could “annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its…
The core assumption and focus of people who work to drive sustainability through markets – as corporate leaders, investors, NGOs or thought leaders – is that we need to convince existing companies and their shareholders that sustainability is first good for their business, and secondly, they can successfully transition to a sustainable business model. But what if both of these are wrong? As…
Many look around at today’s crises – climate change spinning out of control, inequality driving political instability and our oceans filling with plastic – and despair at the prospects for serious change. Most then try to apportion blame or at least seek to understand why. Business blames consumers. NGOs blame business. Everyone blames politicians. Almost everyone who is engaged and thoughtful on…
We’re all focused on the drama and entertainment of Trump’s takeover of the world’s centre of military, security and economic power. For some it’s exciting and entertaining, for others terrifying and apocalyptic. I too have been glued to the news – at various times having each of those responses! But now I’ve come back to earth, recognising it all for what it is. Important, but a sideshow to a…
It’s time to make the call – fossil fuels are finished. The rest is detail. The detail is interesting and important, but unless we recognise the central proposition: that the fossil fuel age is coming to an end, and within 15 to 30 years – not 50 to 100 – we risk making serious and damaging mistakes in climate and economic policy, in investment strategy and in geopolitics and defence… It is now…
This is the year the “dam of denial” will break and the momentum for climate action will become an unstoppable flood. It will be messy, confusing and endlessly debated but with historical hindsight, 2015 will be the year. The year the world turned, primarily because the market woke up to the economic threat posed by climate change and the economic opportunity in the inevitable decline of fossil…
If you want to know what addressing climate change will really be like for business and investors, then take a look at today’s electricity and energy markets. Driven by climate policy, technology development, business innovation, NGO campaigns and investment risk analysis, creative destruction is inflicting itself upon the sector with a vengeance – and the process has just begun. ..this is not a…