Long-shot effort to generate the $5tn needed annually for energy-transition technologies
- Media Manager
- Dec 12, 2023
- 1 min read
Fortune
Written By: Jamey Keaten and The Associated Press
Published: December 12th, 2023
Long-shot effort to generate the $5tn needed annually for energy-transition technologies looks to combine carbon credits with the private sector
A large, long-shot effort is being developed to mobilize money to save Planet Earth.
Climate finance experts say trillions of dollars are needed for forestry projects and renewable energies like solar and wind in the developing world, all aimed at slashing pollution from the burning of oil, gas and coal, which cause climate change.
The price tag is eye-watering: Investment in energy-transition technologies were $1.3 trillion last year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, an intergovernmental group, and that needs to at least quadruple to avoid a level of warming that scientists say would be catastrophic.
Even rich governments can’t commit that kind of cash, and often struggle to get respective congresses and parliaments to even sign off on modest amounts.
Enter a plan to combine the cash-churning power of the private sector with carbon credits, a hot topic of discussion at the annual climate talks taking place in Dubai.
“It’s an enormous amount of capital to raise in a short time, so governments are going to have to be creative in terms of how they get there,” said Yousef Alhorr, founding chairman of the Global Carbon Council, an international carbon credit and sustainable development program based in oil-rich Qatar.
Carbon markets already exist and come with a good deal of baggage, so the plan has plenty of naysayers. Critics of the plan being developed say existing voluntary programs have been badly supervised — leading to cheating and rights abuses.
