Network for greening the financial system has our backs

The great news is that since 2017 the 114 central bank members of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) have been developing scenarios to help financial, government and corporate institutions prepare for the urgent transition to a Net-zero greenhouse gas world. 

Their work began as a hand-off from earlier work of the G20 Green Finance Study Group. Although not something that is a detailed plan, NGFS’s work has stimulated behind-the-scenes preparations that are being rolled out by major consulting firms with public domain reports on these scenarios to help guide planning. 

Although encouraging, the irony is the scenario which seems most likely, to this reader at least, too little too late is not fleshed out at all. 

Perhaps it was an oversight, but it’s more likely everyone knows what too little too late looks like. It’s the path we’re on when it comes to decreasing the greenhouse gases that are increasingly being put in the atmosphere, trapping more heat and raising the average global temperature. 

Meanwhile, the latest IPCC report from the climate experts suggests that the world may reach 1.5 degrees C warming by the end of this decade, well before 2050, which was the goal of the latest Paris climate conference. 

Where’s the moon-shot urgency to install solar panels and wind turbines to get us to Net-zero sooner rather than later? Our descendants may not forgive us our inaction as they will suffer the consequences.

Claude Buettner

Eden Prairie