‘Remarkable Opportunity' for Global Economy in Upcoming Climate Talks: Figueres

Christiana Figueres is executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

An estimated $90 trillion will be invested in infrastructure over the next 15 years:  the crucial question is whether this will go into the old brown economy of the past or a new, resource-efficient, low-carbon economy of the future.
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Green Investments
A proportion of this $90 trillion has begun to migrate toward green investments.

Since 2006 well over $1 trillion has been invested in new renewable energies with rising investments now in developing countries too:  annual global investments in energy efficiency are running at around $300 billion according to the International Energy Agency.
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Limit of 2 Degrees Celsius
Seventy-three national governments, 11 regional governments and more than 1,000 businesses and investors signaled their support for pricing carbon. Together these leaders represent 52 percent of global gross domestic product, 54 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and almost half of the world's population.

But with global greenhouse gas emissions at their highest for 800,000 years and rising, it is clear that the effort to date is not yet commensurate with the task at hand.

This is particularly true in the context of the urgency of staying within the agreed limit of keeping the global temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius to avert the most dangerous impacts of climate change.
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‘Key Moment' in Lima
In a few short weeks nations will meet in Lima for the UN Climate Change Convention conference en route to Paris in late 2015—here nations have agreed to ink a new universal climate agreement.

Lima marks a key moment toward strengthening the low-carbon signal:  the overarching outcome needs to be a draft of the new agreement that is concise and credible enough to be dispatched to cabinets across the globe in 2015.
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Plan for 20, 30, 40 Years
Paris is not going to solve the climate change challenge at a pen stroke.  But it needs to be robust enough and flexible enough to serve the people and the planet for the next 20, 30 or 40 years.
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The short term imperative is to peak global emissions within the next 10 years and the medium necessity is to trigger a deep de-carbonization of the global economy.

Climate Neutrality
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Irrespective of policy, $90 trillion worth of investment is going to flow through the global economy as old power plants are replaced and emerging economies grow.

The world has a remarkable opportunity to imprint that capital flow.  It is an exciting plan, called the Paris agreement, that can channel these game-changing funds into generating real and sustained well-being for all if everyone gets on board over the next 13 precious months.

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