We’ve come a long way in the last few years, perhaps even the last decade. As I have written before, we are now living in a time when mankind is learning most about the effects of its actions on the planet, when a war is being waged on emissions and the unnecessary products of our existence, and sustainability is the word of a generation, globally. Indeed, in the words of the UN, climate change is the defining challenge of this generation.
The dawn of this new year and with it, the dawn of a new decade, crystallises the focus on our goals ahead; now that 2020 is underway, 2030 does not seem quite so distant on the horizon. Over the course of this next 10 years, the world aims to reduce carbon emissions and limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5ºC to avert a climate disaster and embark upon a more sustainable way of life for us all.
By popular consensus, this target requires zero emissions in the timeframe between 2030 and 2050 – an ambitious but unequivocally necessary goal that requires the world’s countries, cities, corporations and citizens to unite and all play their part, however big or small. The need for an energy transition is, then, widely understood. There will inevitably be disruption along the way, from local ecosystems to national infrastructure and economies and in international policymaking, with greater subsidies and support required for renewable energies and new clean technologies. Scale-up and commercialisation is the order of the day in 2020.
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