The Global Imperative of the 'Clean Trillion' - Ceres

Climate change is the most significant threat to sustainable development.  Left unchecked, it threatens to undermine progress on nearly all of the other Sustainable Development Goals -- from ending poverty and hunger to ensuring access to clean water and decent work.

Efforts to lift Bengali farmers living on less than $2 a day out of poverty could be fruitless, for example, if the farmers' livelihoods are lost to rising seas.

And though the world's poorest citizens are indeed the most vulnerable, no one is immune to the effects of climate change.  The potential disruption to civil society and the global economy that could ensue if the natural world that sustains us all breaks down will impact everyone.

Fortunately, the solutions to climate change offer an opportunity to achieve many of the other development goals because they align directly with them -- from providing affordable clean energy, to developing sustainable cities, to ensuring decent work and economic growth.

So how do we achieve the 80 percent-cut in carbon emissions by mid-century that scientists say is essential to prevent catastrophic and irreversible climate change -- even as global emissions continue to rise?

Private-Sector Leadership
Private-sector leadership is a key linchpin, both for innovating the clean-energy solutions we so desperately need -- energy-efficiency technologies, solar cells and solar stoves, battery storage, electric vehicles, and so on -- and for catalyzing the massive levels of capital that are required to transform our global-energy systems.

Already, the private sector is embracing the clean-energy transition.  A 2014 study found that 60 percent of Fortune 100 companies have set their own clean-energy targets for reducing their carbon footprints and boosting renewable-energy sourcing.  In doing so, they are saving more than $1 billion a year in energy costs.

Earlier this summer, 13 U.S. companies pledged about $140 billion in clean energy and energy-efficiency investments to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions.  From Apple to Microsoft to General Mills -- every month, headlines boast new corporate commitments to renewable energy and other carbon-cutting measures.
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Exciting progress, to be sure, but it's still not enough with scientists warning that we are on a path to a 5-degree rise in global temperatures with potentially calamitous consequences for humanity.  The International Energy Agency (IEA) in fact estimates that at least an additional trillion dollars in new clean-energy investments is needed annually over the next 35 years to keep atmospheric warming below the 2°C threshold.

At Ceres, we call this global imperative the Clean Trillion.

Current clean-energy-investment levels are about $300 billion a year.  To more than triple that amount, we need the right policies in place to incentivize further investment -- policies like the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, which will reduce carbon pollution from existing U.S. power plants.  It also means renewable-portfolio standards, low-carbon fuel standards, and ultimately a revenue-neutral carbon tax that does not disproportionately impact the poor.

The Global Imperative of the 'Clean Trillion'