Good piece by Helen Clark on Huff Post:
A Zero-Carbon Future
Soon I will be making my way to the Paris Climate Conference where it is hoped that a new global climate change agreement will be concluded. The Paris Agreement has the potential to put our economies and societies on a path to green, risk-informed, and inclusive growth, and move us all towards a zero-carbon, sustainable future. The world must seize this opportunity.
The main purpose of the climate conference, called COP21, is to agree on a comprehensive deal which places all countries on the same long-term development path. This bears repeating: Paris itself will not solve climate change. Instead, Paris will lay out the pathway towards that ultimate goal, the course we need to stay on in the years and decades to come.
So what must this pathway contain? It must support green economic growth which is driven by innovation from forward-thinking sectors. It must support sustainable jobs. It needs institutions which encourage all levels of society–from civil society to public administrations and the private sector–to work together to tackle problems. It must contain the tools which enable us to adapt to our changing world.
The old argument that addressing climate change will hurt jobs and economies is unconvincing. Green and inclusive growth is the way of the future. …
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Paris must be a catalyst for stepped up climate action. The world must move towards a zero-carbon future. There is no room for short-sightedness or a lack of ambition. When a new climate deal is reached in December, as we hope and expect, let us all roll up our sleeves and get to work to ensure that Paris is a decisive step forward on the journey to zero-carbon and sustainable development.
Worth repeating – “There is no room for short-sightedness or a lack of ambition”. Go read the whole piece on Huff Post.
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