Op-Ed: Here’s how companies can strong-arm their suppliers into cutting carbon emissions and helping them get to net zero
“This is a huge problem for our planet.” – Thomas Friedman, columnist
The world is facing the biggest challenge it has ever faced. In just one generation, we are transforming the way we live – and the future of our planet looks bleak.
In a few short decades, the global population is projected to skyrocket to 9.3 billion people – more than twice its level in 2015. We’ll be in our 80s by 2100, and our children a thousand times more likely to live in cities than we are.
Our global economy is growing, with new jobs, higher incomes, and greater efficiency. Our transportation networks are getting better and we are learning to drive less. We are also rapidly increasing our population – a fact that’s been a problem for generations.
In fact, for decades, the world has been locked in a carbon-burning “growth vs. nature” dilemma: We need growth to fuel the rest of the world, but we need to leave the planet a little better for our children and the generations to come.
So as we have gone green from one generation to the next, we have always sacrificed some of nature’s bounty in order to get it up to a comfortable, energy-efficient state.
As a society we’ve done this for decades – and in doing so, we’ve dramatically accelerated the rate of our future climate pollution – but there’s no way we’re going to fix the climate crisis with a Band-Aid. We have to get to net zero carbon emissions. And we need to do it today.
Fortunately, technology has made it possible for people to get net zero carbon emissions – and the industry leaders leading the charge are some of the brightest and best minds in the world.
In this Op-Ed, I list the leading, global, tech-based solutions to clean-energy innovation.
At least 85 percent of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas thought to be most responsible for global warming, is still locked in the atmosphere. And that’s just the visible portion. The rest lies underground, where it is
