Solutions to Save a Dying Planet

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This week is Sustainability Week 2023 at Imperial College London. I will be speaking about How to generate greater financial investment in nature, at a Grantham Institute event on Wednesday 22nd of February.

This event is part of Imperial College London’s Sustainability Week 2023. You can visit the Sustainable Imperial webpage to find out more.

We depend on nature – the World Economic Forum suggests that half of the global economy (US$ 44 trillion) is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services - yet for the most part we act as if we don’t. We are failing to protect or care for nature in a way that will enable us to continue living the way we do today.

The same is true for climate change: we are on track to overshoot the goals set in the Paris Agreement, with a 3C scenario looking likely. Energy intensities (Energy/GDP) and carbon intensities (CO₂/Energy) must decline considerably faster for a given level of economic activity (GDP) if we are to reach ‘well-below 2C’.

Since the trajectory we are on appears not to take us to where we want to be, we should probably change our trajectory.

This is what Adrienne Buller suggests in her brilliantly refreshing book The Value of a Whale. But rather than joining the chorus of those arguing for a carbon price or more incentives, the book carefully lays out the evidence and then proceeds to deconstruct the current system of ‘green capitalism’. I may not agree with everything she says, but she certainly has done her research and points out that, fundamentally, we are moving way too slowly. Our current system of green incentives and sustainable investing are unlikely to get us to where we need to be.

In my talk on Wednesday, I will bring up well-documented conditions for bringing more private investments into nature. But I will also say that it’s not enough. We are tinkering at the edges. And we really should wake up.