Funding Climate Progress rather than Climate Perfection (or why I am going to Glasgow COP26)

Written By Stephen Warnken

For me Glasgow is all about funding real world climate technology progress and rather than pursuing ‘climate perfectionism’. Success will be measured by the scale of investment into building an emissions removals industry around nature-based solutions, emerging green industries and direct air carbon capture, utilisation and storage.  These initiatives have the potential to fast follow the development profile of renewable energy and emerge into an industry to rival oil and gas in size, with the capacity of delivering a safe climate well ahead of 2050, if we can get the carbon market settings and funding models to scale as well.

 There is definitely a huge up swell of media attention and focus on the upcoming Glasgow COP26, which is shaping up to be the most attended COP (other than Paris).  A large part of the focus is on the need for ambitious targets to deliver a safe climate.  And when it is raining on Greenland's ice cap for the first time in human recorded history, I certainly get the need for urgency and action.

However, I believe the key metric of success for Glasgow will not be so much around target setting, but rather around the mobilisation of capital to invest into climate solutions that follow the large gains already made in renewable energy.  In other words, the need to fund real world climate progress and not to get hung up on climate perfectionism on the path to net zero emissions by 2050.

Australia's long-term emissions reduction plan to achieve net zero emissions (NZE) by 2050 is a great case in point.  Climate perfectionists are becoming increasingly vocal around the use of offsets (carbon credits from either emissions reductions or sequestration projects) to achieve NZE outcomes.  Opposition to offsets usually follows themes like:

  • it can’t be done – the technology won’t work

  • it shouldn’t be done – project owners such as farmers shouldn’t be paid for improved environmental outcomes

  • it isn’t real – the monitoring, reporting and verification is absent or faulty

  • it lets polluters off the hook – oil and gas companies are greenwashing

  • it isn’t additional – it would have happened under business-as-usual anyway.

In short, the judgement on offsets projects is that because they are not perfect, they lack integrity, and because they lack integrity they have no role to play in achieving a safe climate.  Individual projects are attacked on the above points in an attempt to discredit entire methodologies and certification programs for climate solutions.

Don’t get me wrong, strong integrity standards for offsets creation are important.  However, the negative approach outlined above misses the fundamental point. 

The real climate-materiality test for integrity is attaining sufficient progress to operate at scale.  This real-world test for offsets is not about each individual credit, or even each individual project.  It is the combined portfolio effect of the underlying program.

For example, the Australian Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) is Australia’s offsets program to incentivise avoided emissions or carbon sequestration.  This year the ERF celebrated two key milestones of 1,000 projects registered and 100 million carbon credits issued over the past nine years.  And at the heart of each individual offset project is an abatement activity.  We need these abatement activities - all of them, and at scale - in order to have any chance of meeting our climate objectives.

As a direct result of this program, Australia is now a world leader in nature-based solutions project development. The map below was prepared by Corporate Carbon and shows 810 projects from a multitude of developers and landowners. Projects include savanna wildfire management (with strong indigenous engagement and leadership around caring for country), vegetation (native forest regeneration at a national scale) and soil carbon (the fastest growing category of project with more than half of all new projects registered over the past year). These projects are spread over all states and territories and the land covers nearly 10% of Australia’s landmass (71 million hectares out of 769 million hectares). To date over 65 million tonnes of abatement have been delivered, in addition to many other ecosystem services.

Because of this progress, the Australian carbon market is now in a position to talk credibly about progressing from the delivery of 100 million tonnes to 1 billion tonnes of abatement over the next nine years to 2030.

This focus on progress and scale means that we will have developed key technologies to draw down emissions and address the legacy load of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – essential for climate repair post 2030.  Furthermore, it will accelerate progress to deliver net zero outcomes well ahead of 2050 and provide the necessary emissions removal tools to reduce global carbon dioxide concentrations to safe levels.

And that's why I'm going to Glasgow, to be part of the progress in developing and funding climate technology solutions and accelerating the development of an emissions removal industry. 

It is a privilege to be invited by the Australian Government to Glasgow to be the industry exhibitor on 8 November 2021 at the Australia Pavilion representing two great initiatives:  Soil Carbon with AgriProve and Direct Air Capture with Corporate Carbon and Southern Green Gas. 

I’m also attending as the head of delegation for Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia.  I will be sharing observations from Glasgow throughout the COP as part of G’day Glasgow: The BCSD Australia COP26 Daily News Program.  (There may also be a LinkedIn post from time to time!)

I’m excited by the potential of Glasgow to accelerate funding of progress and scale through building a global emissions removal industry that delivers a safe climate. For this to work we all need to focus on our collective contribution to climate progress – after all there is plenty of work to do and quick!

Stephen Warnken