Speaking at the Better World Summit 2020, Alberto Carrillo Pineda, the Director of Science-Based Targets and Renewable Energy Procurement from CDP said the need to transition towards a net-zero carbon economy is vital as it’s the main cause of global warming.
According to him, the distribution of emissions by sector is electricity and heat production (25 percent), agriculture, forestry and other land use (24 percent), industries (21 percent), transportation (14 percent), production of fossil fuels (10 percent) and buildings (6 percent).
“Global mean temperatures are already 1.1℃ above the temperatures that we had before the industrial revolution. Yet, in many regions in the world, mean temperatures have become much higher,” he highlighted.
Alberto then addressed the imbalance between anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and removals. Although the desired state is to have both balanced, the current state is the imbalance between anthropogenic sources of emissions and sinks resulting in a net-accumulation of GHG emissions in the atmosphere.
He also shared the worrying level of additional risk due to climate change above high, which is supposed to be in between undetectable and moderate as identified by climate science as a ‘safe’ threshold.
“In order for us to limit warming to 1.5℃ and 2℃, we need to transition to net-zero emission in three decades and five decades respectively,” Alberto emphasised.
“Net-zero emission can be achieved by the following. First, transitioning from fossil-based energy to clean and renewable energy and phasing out carbon dioxide emissions in other parts of our economy.
Second, transitioning from an internal combustion engine to an electrified clean transportation system. Third, ending deforestation and start protecting and restoring natural ecosystems.
Lastly, moving from an extractive linear economy to a circular and regenerative one,” he outlined.
Real economy actors join 120 countries in the largest ever alliance committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest. They comprise 452 cities, 22 regions, 1, 101 businesses, 45 of the biggest investors, and 549 universities.
Besides that, over 1, 000 companies are setting GHG emission reduction targets with the ambition required to meet the Paris Agreement goals. These companies represent nearly 20 percent of the global equity market and have annual value chain emissions comparable to the emissions of the United States.
He ended his presentation by mentioning the ICT industry which is up to reduce GHG emissions by 45 percent by 2030.
“34 telecommunication companies have committed to set science-based GHG emission reduction targets and 18 of them have public targets independently validated by the Science Based Targets initiative,” he pointed out.
