Climate Action Summit 2016

Climate change is the defining issue of our age. The landmark Paris Agreement reached last December commits all countries to holding global temperature rise to “well below 2 degrees Celsius”. This feat will require economy-wide global and national transformations. A robust, multi-sector response will be a key component of this solution to pivot societies toward a more sustainable future for all – the future we want.

Our understanding of climate change is rapidly evolving—from the world’s biggest problem, to the world’s biggest opportunity. Technological change, citizen mobilization, economic and political competition, and the formation of massive public-private coalitions have all helped turn the climate action risk-reward equation on its head.

But that’s not the end of the story; it’s the beginning. The Paris Agreement recognizes that the new climate regime will create climate solutions markets that are “bottom up” as well as “top down.” The Agreement calls for the active support of business and finance, mayors and governors, academia and civil society, as well as national governments. The new climate regime will create a floor for progress, not a ceiling, and look to coalitions of all these actors to determine how we can accelerate ambition and achieve the kind of progress necessary to secure our future.