Road to 2045

With the United States Back in the Fold, 2021 will be a Pivotal Year for the Climate

By Jakob Lagercrantz

We are at the moment focusing on a very visible and hard-hitting pandemic, hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel. In the meantime, the climate crisis is ongoing, albeit less visible to most. The consequences will be painful and costly. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates in a report that climate change will claim 250,000 lives annually from 2030.

Luckily, the interests of governments and enterprises in curtailing climate change are starting to grow. When the United Nations global climate meeting COP 21 in Paris in 2015 arrived at the far-reaching Paris Agreement, many were surprised. The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change signed by 196 countries, including China, the US and Russia.

The US decided to leave the agreement under President Trump, but the new administration has announced that it will rejoin as soon as possible. President Biden has not only launched a $2 billion Green Deal that will accelerate sustainable development in the US, but he has also invited global leaders to a climate summit during the first 100 days of his administration. This is indeed a 180-degree turnaround. What is needed now is to have a united front among the major countries in the world fighting global warming.

In December 2020, the EU adopted a binding climate law aiming at a 55 percent reduction of carbon dioxide by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. This is a more ambitious undertaking than the former target and will demand that most climate or energy related legislation is rewritten in the coming six months. Few think the EU will be able to move so rapidly, but it is probably the fastest climate turnaround in EU history.

On the corporate side, the same is happening. From apparently empty “green” promises in the early 2000’s, we see more and more companies adopting specific and even ambitious goals. Microsoft is a great example. Just one year ago they announced that they will be climate neutral by 2030, and by 2050 will have made up for all the company’s carbon emissions since it was founded in 1975.

When business is taking the climate challenge seriously, we will see more products on the market with less impact on the environment, and we won’t even notice the difference. Many of us still remember going by car to video stores to rent a video, and sometimes even a portable video player. Today we stream music and films with much less climate impact. Digital meetings have become the new norm; they are often more efficient, less time consuming, and with only a small portion of the climate impact of travelling to and from meetings. That said – we do need to meet from time to time, so the post-pandemic meeting culture in the future will be a mixture of virtual and on-site conferences.

Next car you buy could very well be an electric vehicle – a better car than what we used to have, with very low climate impact (depending on how the electricity is produced). Currently more than 30 per cent of all new cars in Sweden are electric, and California has become a global cluster for electric vehicle development. Tesla, a company founded only 20 years ago, is worth more than Toyota, Disney or Coke, and the company’s founder, Elon Musk, has become the worlds’ richest person.

These examples show the strength of corporate green ambitions. As consumers we have to make sure that we support companies with strong sustainability platforms and turn our backs on those companies that trail behind.

The Swedish 2030-secretariat was formed to support the decarbonization of the transport sector in Sweden. The secretariat is independent from political parties and technical solutions.