The Climate Fight Isn’t About Morality. It’s About Cold, Hard Cash.

Details

Author(s):
Publish Date:
November 9, 2021
Publication Title:
The New York Times
Format:
Op-Ed or Opinion Piece
Citation(s):
  • Jeffrey Ball, The Climate Fight Isn’t About Morality. It’s About Cold, Hard Cash., The New York Times, November 9, 2021.
Related Organization(s):

Abstract

Nowhere is cutting carbon emissions more crucial than in the world’s emerging and developing economies, where the thirst for energy, and the output of carbon dioxide, is rising the fastest. New power plants there will lock in the trajectory of global warming for decades to come.

But here’s the big problem: Fifty-two percent of new power generation financed in those countries from 2018 through 2020 is on track to be inconsistent with the global goal of keeping Earth’s average temperature from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold scientists have said is crucial to stave off particularly disastrous effects from global warming.