In our last post Here on the blog, we cover the concepts of the greenhouse effect, global warming and climate change. Today, we're going to talk a little more about the consequences of global warming and how the world has acted to combat these effects throughout history.
Effects of climate change
You may have seen many photos and videos of glaciers melting, icebergs the size of cities being thrown into the sea – the last one that came loose in the Antarctica was the size of the Federal District -, isolated polar bears and many others when it comes to global warming. Indeed, the melting of all the ice in Antarctica and the North Pole is one of the easiest effects to see in this announced catastrophe, but it is not the only one.
All the continental ice that melts increasingly increases sea levels, causing it to rise and flood several cities on the coast: this will change the lives of millions of people who live in these regions forever. And it doesn't stop there, climate change can also transform fertile lands into deserts, greatly damaging food production in some places and generating water supply crises in others.
These impacts also affect the activities of companies, which will encounter highly risky scenarios to carry out their operations and may face major financial losses. In short, no matter where on the planet you live or what line of business you do, global warming will affect you in some way. There is no way to escape.
The role of the UN and the COP
If this is a problem that affects the entire world, there is nothing more natural than the matter being addressed at the United Nations (UN) – and that is exactly what happened. This year we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the historic UN Conference on Environment and Development, which took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This meeting, also called Rio92, laid the foundations for many initiatives that are important today: one of them was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
This Convention started to hold periodic meetings, entitled “Conference of the Parties” (acronym COP), which bring together all parties interested in the climate change debate: States, companies, organizations and civil society. It is worth highlighting the COPs because these meetings were the stage for the biggest agreements that UN countries reached on climate change.
The first major COP agreement took place in 1997, in the Japanese city of Kyoto, where the Kyoto Protocol was approved (if you want to know more details, access this page of the Ministry of the Environment). This agreement set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions for developed countries, as they were considered historically responsible for the major air pollution that triggered the climate change process.
As this topic was still very recent and many people even questioned the real existence of global warming, the Protocol only came into force in 2005 after obtaining the necessary number of signatures from the parties.
The delay in adopting the Kyoto Protocol only demonstrated how much the climate change agenda was still seen as secondary by governments around the world. It is true that initiatives have continued to emerge in these eight years, but the goals of the agreement no longer seem up-to-date and sufficient to face a problem that only grows every year.
The COPs continued to happen, many debates arose, but it seemed very difficult to reach a consensus on practical actions to combat global warming and climate change. There were many interests at stake and almost no one was willing to give up some things for the greater good.
A change in the scenario: the Paris Agreement
In 2015, this scenario finally began to change. COP21, held in Paris, reached a new agreement that brought practical actions and plans against climate change. Now, with the support of much more studies and research, the Parties are beginning to understand that this century (21st) will be decisive for guaranteeing our life on Earth and preserving nature as we know it. As we saw in the last post, this does not in any way mean giving up economic growth and business development. On the contrary, The cost of doing nothing is that it will bring enormous losses to the economy.
Making the transition to a more sustainable world is urgent, necessary and also a great opportunity for new business. The Paris Agreement was written in this context and establishes a commitment to maintain the increase in the planet's average temperature at less than 2°C, above pre-Industrial Revolution levels, making efforts to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5°C . You can find more information about the Paris Agreement in this page, also from the Ministry of the Environment.
The great innovation of the Paris Agreement was the presentation of contributions from each signatory country to curb global warming, entitled Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). CEBDS has a post that explains in detail What is NDC and what are the commitments that Brazil assumed in the Paris Agreement.
For Brazil to achieve the goals it committed to in the Paris Agreement, it is necessary for the government and companies to dialogue extensively and develop an implementation plan that makes our economy increasingly sustainable. In this context, CEBDS released a study on Opportunity and Challenges of the Brazilian NDC goals for the Business Sector – you can access it here.
