⚡Behind your back
It’s Friday! Today wraps up this week of writing daily. To all our consistent readers, thank you 🙏. We want to improve what we’re doing so if you have any feedback, please just respond to this email with your thoughts.
Here’s some highlights of this weeks newsletters:
Monday: covered how social risk is a business risk!
Tuesday: covered that the Giant Trash Net is working; Gran Chaco is on fire
Wednesday: covered how NBA bended the knee to China; how Women only get 1.6% of charitable donations; How to stop the Amazon fires
Thursday: covered how profit is still king in oil; Support local agriculture
Let’s get into it!
Getting to Net Zero Emissions by 2050
Continuation of yesterday’s conversation on “Profit is still king in oil”
If we’re going to protect ourselves from the worst impacts of climate change, scientists say that emissions have to shrink to net zero by 2050.
So how do we do that? The Center for American Progress (CAP) created a report that maps out a potential path we can pursue to get to zero emissions by 2050 and reduced emissions by 2030. Here it is:
2030 Targets
65% of electricity needs to come from clean sources
Manufacturing will need to cut emissions by at least 15% and have a plan for deep decarbonization
US needs to invest $120 billion in cutting emissions in agriculture and harnessing ways farms capture emissions
30% of the land and oceans need protection
100 million acres of agrictultual land will need to adopt “climate-smart” practices.
2035 Targets
Every new car sold will need to be a zero-emission vehicle.
All new buildings and appliances will need to be highly efficient and be electric by 2035.
2050 Targets
All electricity needs to come from clean sources
Feels like a no-brainer! With all of these, we could achieve 90% of the emissions reductions that are necessary.
CAP’s Take: It’s going to be really tough, but it’s possible. What’s important is to show the immediate benefits that will result.
“There have to be results that people feel in the near term improve their lives. So, how are we delivering on high-quality, good-paying jobs? That’s something that addresses issues of unemployment and issues of transition right away. This is not just about emissions reduction in the future.”
Our take: The report not only gives the necessary targets, but also offers a recommendation of how to reach them. We hope that it’s the start to more people looking for solutions and actually implementing them. This can’t be accomplished with one group of people. We’re going to need support from both public and private sectors combined with people power. There needs to be mass coordination towards these goals.
One thing that we’re hesitant towards is that this plan only achieves 90% of emissions reductions necessary. It would be more prudent to create a plan that has imagined a way to have 120% of the emissions reductions necessary, which allows for some cushion and margin of error.
Behind our backs
On September 20, we mentioned that Google made the biggest corporate purchase of renewable energy 1 day before the Global Climate Strike and how Amazon is committed to their “Climate Pledge” and promised net zero carbon emissions by 2040 and 100% renewables by 2030. It seems while professing one thing, they’re doing something else. Here’s what we found after breaking into their phones and reading their texts.
Amazon gets cozy with Big Oil for its “Accelerate Production 4.0” Event. What? Yeah… according to Offshore Engineer Magazine, Amazon Web Services has (with Microsoft and IBM) partnered with Weatherford, a major oilfield services provider, to help build its suite of Production 4.0 technologies. What do those do? These technologies are intended to accelerate and improve oil production. Of course, AWS was a Platinum sponsor of the event.
Google funded climate change deniers. Now, it just feels like we’re on a tv show and we’re getting punked. Google has a list on its website with hundreds of beneficiaries of its political giving. More than a dozen of these organizations have campaigned against climate legislation, questioned the need for action, and/or actively fought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections. They’ve even supported CEI, a conservative policy group that was instrumental in convincing the Trump administration to abandon the Paris agreement.
Our take: Amazon’s letting everyone know that they’re still very open to working with and advancing technology that improves fossil fuel production. By making oil cheaper and easier to extract, Amazon is actively working to delay the switch to cleaner energy. Google is supporting the political groups that are actively and successfully pushing policy that makes it easier for industries to not worry about their environmental impact. What we need isn’t news headlines, but leaders within these powerful companies who will actually be authentic and put their foot down… or maybe we need new companies.
Short takes:
Furthering ours fears about the state of democracy around the world, Chinese citizens will have to scan their faces to get internet access and new phone numbers. China says its about protecting law abiding citizens, but of course it’s really just about control.
Climate change is causing ocean species to disappear faster than those on land.
We’ve always betted on blockchain and it seems that many executives agree. 93% say blockchain helps achieve social impact goals. Blockchain as a technology can tackle inclusion and offer access.
Yesterday we mentioned that the UN’s broke. Well… the Trump administration owes the UN $1 billion.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16
Feeding Our Future: Perspectives Across the Value Chain in Food Sustainability
Join the NY + Acumen Impact Circle on World Food Day for a discussion on the future of food sustainability. They will explore different perspectives across the various parts of the value chain, including investment, production, distribution, and waste/renewability.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17
War Stories from the Trenches - Fundraising for Startups Solving the World’s Greatest Challenges: Early-stage fundraising can be very challenging, and this is even further the case for social enterprises. Check out this event for a discussion on best practices for opening and closing a round to solve the world’s greatest challenges.
MONDAY OCTOBER 28
Conversations on Plant-based Entrepreneurship: Vegpreneur is a global entrepreneurs community that is made up of innovators who are building a plant-based future and they’re hosting an evening panel on the state of plant-based entrepreneurship at General Assembly. Light snacks and refreshments will be served.
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