The future of our species and planet depends on creating a mass social movement motivated by moral arguments, not statistics.
One approch: … A good place to start would be the G20 countries, which represent around 80 percent of global emissions. Getting the G20 to pledge that each country will enshrine net-zero by 2050 in domestic law may seem a political impossibility now, but making that a political reality must be an urgent priority. …
Article by Eric Beinhocker, professor at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, also at Oxford.
… kids today should start asking their parents to put $250 for every ton of carbon they emit into a trust fund for the mess we are leaving them. …
Recently, the UK took an important step in that direction. The government’s Committee on Climate Change recommended that the UK enact a 2050 net-zero target in legislation, joining most Nordic countries, France, New Zealand, California, who have adopted or are in the process of adopting similar targets. In addition, 19 cities around the world have adopted net-zero targets for buildings, transport, and other infrastructure. The EU is also considering a 2050 net-zero target. But rather than “targets,” these leading cities, states, countries, and regions should enshrine net-zero in law. Such laws would clearly state that, after 2050, emissions of carbon in these places will be illegal unless verifiably offset by equal amounts of captured carbon. Enacting such 2050 carbon bans would send the strongest signal yet to business, the financial markets, and consumers that the carbon economy has a finite life—it will come to an end by 2050.
While some will howl in protest that 2050 carbon bans would be catastrophic for the economies that enacted them, causing businesses to collapse or flee, and jobs to disappear, in fact the opposite would happen. Enacting such laws would trigger a wave of innovation and investment on a scale not seen since the Industrial Revolution. The great strength of markets is their adaptability and capacity for innovation. Such a clear and unambiguous signal would say: “You’ve got 30 years to wind down our fossil infrastructure and products and replace them with zero carbon alternatives. Go!” Does anyone seriously think that entrepreneurs, engineers, businesspeople, and investors will say, “Sorry, we’d rather just sit on our hands and go bankrupt”? Instead they will say, “There is a huge new market coming into life right now and we’d better race to be first.” Action would start immediately—any investments made today, especially in assets that last over decades, would need to take that deadline into account. Of course, other policies, intermediate deadlines, and public investments would be needed to manage the transition. But a deadline fixed in law would provide a huge motive force that is absent today. …