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Climate Change Is a Clear and Present Danger
It is becoming increasingly clear that climate change is a clear and present danger to our planet, to all of us. Last year was the warmest on record, according to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The heat brought with it extreme weather events that wreaked havoc across the globe. Antarctic sea ice coverage dropped to a record low in 2023 even as sea surface saw record high temperatures which did not diminish with the arrival of winter. At this rate, instead of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, we may see it rise by 3.4 degrees by the end of the century.
“Last year, 2023, … was literally the most climate disruptive, most climate consequential negative year in human history,” said United States Special Envoy for Climate Change, John Kerry.
“There are millions of people already … moving in various places on the planet, not always exclusively because of climate but greatly added to by climate. Water crises, lack of ability to grow the crops they used to grow, a prevalence of disease that now takes hold that we thought we had eradicated,” he said. “Disruptions to business, disruptions to life all bear cost and people who are following this will tell you the cost of lost productivity of interruptions of movement of goods and services and so forth.”
One of the biggest obstacles in the fight to avert a climate crisis is financing. “Trillions of dollars are needed, somewhere between 2.5 to three trillion and 4.5 to 5 trillion a year every year for the next until we get to 2050,” said Mr. Kerry. There is a need for private investment. But people are reluctant to invest, so we must deploy funds to create bankable deals.
“When you create a bankable deal, you're basically taking risk out of the deal, reducing the risk so that you have first loss or … earnest money or something put up that gives people confidence that if they are going to put some of that money down … they can have defensible prospects that that's a bet that's worth making now,” he said.
“How do we do that? Well, philanthropy can play a far bigger role than it is today,” said Mr. Kerry. “Philanthropy gives grants, and it knows it's making a bet here. I think the bet could not be more important, couldn't be bigger, couldn't be more compelling.”