Helen Clarkson: 'We can, we will' optimism in face of stalled ... - Reuters

Helen Clarkson: ‘We can, we will’ optimism in face of stalled progress on eve of Climate Week | Reuters

Helen Clarkson: ‘We can, we will’ optimism in face of stalled progress on eve of Climate Week

Solar panels are seen along with a view of lower Manhattan from Brooklyn, New York, U.S. There is 8 billion square feet of space available in the U.S. for rooftop photovoltaics. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Acquire Licensing Rights

- Summary

- U.N. global stocktake ahead of New York summit puts excess GHG to 2030 at 24bn tonnes
- But Climate Group chief Helen Clarkson says solutions for rapid decarbonisation already exist
- Initatives such as RE100 and EV100 are generating action, including in hard-to-abate sectors
- Building coalitions and 'followship' can enable businesses to make bold climate commitments
- Policymakers need to engineer financial systems that incentivise companies to take action

September 13 - When hundreds of business executives, political delegates, and climate scientists descend on New York this Sunday for the city’s annual United Nations-backed Climate Week NYC, Helen Clarkson will have one simple message for them: “We can, we will”.

Yet to judge by current progress, neither assertion is in any way guaranteed. Attendees will arrive at the side-event to the U.N. General Assembly’s annual Climate Ambition Summit with the clock ticking fast to 2030 – the first major marker in the journey towards net zero by mid-century.

The United Nations’ global stocktake on progress towards meeting the Paris Agreement makes for worrying reading. The technical assessment, released last Friday, puts the amount of excess greenhouse gases between now and the end of the decade at as much as 24 billion tonnes.

The situation is almost terminal, the U.N. concludes: “There is a rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition and implement existing commitments in order to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.”

So why the confidence on the part of Clarkson, who heads up Climate Group, the environmental non-profit that has coordinated Climate Week NYC since its inception in 2009.

The case for “we can” is the easier part of her slogan. Many of the solutions for rapid decarbonisation already exist, she says. Given Climate Group’s leadership of RE100, a global campaign encouraging large businesses to go 100% renewable, Clarkson is ready with the facts to back up her assertion.
Helen Clarkson, chief executive of Climate Group, speaking at Climate Week New York in 2021. Handout via REUTERS Acquire Licensing Rights

New solar plants are more than 10 times cheaper than existing gas-fired power plants. There is 8 billion square feet of space available in the U.S. for rooftop photovoltaics. South Korea has 620 gigawatts of offshore wind potential, and counting.

Over 400,000 electric vehicles have already been deployed by the 120 corporate supporters of the group’s EV100 initiative, with a further 5.75 million vehicles committed by 2030.

Even in so-called “hard-to-abate” sectors such as coal, steel and cement, there is progress towards net-zero solutions, Clarkson argues.

One example is zero-carbon steel, which is now technically possible through innovative technologies such as green hydrogen and smelting with carbon capture – albeit “very expensive”.

Again, Climate Group has been instrumental in trying to generate collective action within business, coordinating industry-led initiatives such as SteelZero and ConcreteZero.

For all her enthusiasm, Clarkson, a qualified accountant and former humanitarian worker, knows the ins and outs of the climate game well enough not to get carried away.

“A lot of low hanging fruit are gone,” she says. “So we're now onto stuff that is harder because it involves things like collaboration and getting companies to engage with policymakers.”
A general view of the Hybrit pilot plant producing fossil-free steel in Lulea, Sweden. Vattenfall/Asa Backlin/Handout via REUTERS Acquire Licensing Rights

There are other obstacles, not least the backlash in some U.S. investment and policy circles to companies’ supposedly “woke” commitments to climate targets and strategies.

For Clarkson, such criticisms are evidence of legacy businesses and other vested interests striking out against what they see as a real and imminent threat to the long-standing status quo (read: fossil-fuel dependency).

While less than ideal for a movement in desperate need of acceleration, the antagonism of these powerful entities suggests that climate action is starting to bite, she argues.

Even so, just because solutions to reducing climate emissions are technically possible and some leading corporations are beginning to implement them, net zero is still far from a dead cert.

For the “we will” of Climate Week’s maxim to stand up, it will take a huge step-change, both in the volume of companies prepared to act on climate and the urgency with which they do so.

Her hopes rest in part on building coalitions of the willing. Helping here is a trend that she refers to as “followship”. Not every company wants to be out front as a climate leader, she reasons; by the same token, not many want to be branded a laggard – or so she hopes.

Climate Group’s expectation is that for every large company that makes a bold climate commitment, 10 or 20 supply companies will fall in behind.
Signage for London's Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) zone. REUTERS/Toby Melville Acquire Licensing Rights

“With our campaigns, we’re trying to get lots of companies to do the same thing, so making it safe to be in the pack and this being the normal thing to do.”

It may not be the most galvanising of ideas, but it has the virtue of being squarely rooted in everyday business realities. This kind of grounded attitude is what Clarkson was getting at last year when describing Climate Week as being “less about announcements” and more “about action”.

Followship works as long as the road is smooth. Leaders expect obstacles and are willing to battle to overcome them. Followers, on the contrary, do not. When the going gets tough (i.e. their climate efforts hit profits or otherwise impair business growth), they scale back or stop.

Hence, Clarkson’s adamance that policymakers engineer financial and economic systems that incentivise companies to take action – or, as a minimum, remove the disincentives to doing so.

“We want to see more linking up between all the different layers of government, like states, regions, and cities, “ she states.

She gives the example of ULEZ, London’s new Ultra Low Emission Zone. On the one hand, the measure has drawn criticism from some motorists due to the penalties it places on car use in the UK capital city. On the other hand, it promises to speed up the transition to net zero by incentivising the use of zero-emission vehicles or public transport.

“This is where the rubber really hits the road for climate policies coming in, so the more that national governments can engage with measures like this is really important,” she adds.

Together, business and policymakers have the clout to accelerate the transition to net zero, says Clarkson. They can exercise that clout if they so wish. But will they? With 2030 rushing up very quickly, they’re fast running out of road to decide.

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