Let's have carbon pricing now
8
published :
13 Jan 2021 at 11:26
8
US President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration comes just a month after the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement, auguring long-overdue progress in the global fight against climate change. Despite recent political commitments by major emitters to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century, the world still is not yet on track to prevent global warming from exceeding 2C — a target that must be reached to avert massive disruptions to human societies.
Fortunately, we can at least quantify the challenge at hand. According to the International Energy Agency, global energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions in 2019 totaled roughly 33 billion tonnes — a figure that ultimately must be reduced to net zero.