BLOOMBERG • September 19, 2022
In 2018, the most authoritative group of climate scientists defined our climate mission simply and directly. The world needs to eliminate carbon dioxide pollution by mid-century and halve it, below the 2010 level, by 2030. Countries, cities, businesses and investors heard this and acted. Sort of. They largely heard this to mean that companies and governments need net-zero plans. But that’s not what the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. The scientists said that Earth needs a net-zero plan. “We’re seeing an increasing trend toward pass-the-buck environmentalism,” says Gavin McCormick, executive director of WattTime, a nonprofit offering technology that tracks the real-time intensity of electricity emissions.