Starting today, December 3, the 24th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or 'COP24', gets under way in Katowice in Poland. One of the key objectives of the Session, over the next 10 days, is to adopt the implementation guidelines of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a mission that acquires urgency, given that many signatory-countries have not yet committed themselves to concrete measures to mitigate climate change.
Helping to focus the minds of policymakers around the world, the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made public in October, drew grim attention to the climate-change reality that confronts humankind, and the mission-mode efforts needed in all aspects of society in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C (above pre-industrial levels).
Particularly for developing economies such as India, these issues are not an abstraction. As the IPCC report noted, the "avoided climate change impacts" on sustainable development, eradication of poverty and reducing inequalities would be greater if global warming were limited to 1.5°C rather than 2°C.
In response to the challenge, businesses around the world are stepping up with climate-change solutions – and, indeed, scaling up their efforts. Critically, they are acting not merely out of a sense of “doing good”, but are working on sustainable and viable projects.
Every year, BusinessLine partners with social enterprise Sparknews and 20 leading media organisations around the world to bring you the stories of the innovators and social entrepreneurs who are - in small ways and big - making the world a cleaner, greener place. The solutions that we are showcasing this year can, if replicated on a large-enough scale, help meet the mitigation goals that scientists have set.
In this section , you can read about a non-banking finance company that operates in southern India, and helps drivers become owners of four-stroke-engine 'green autos'; a for-profit initiative to grow 'urban forests' in Indian cities, which fight pollution; a social entrepreneur in Mexico who transforms recycled plastics into affordable homes for low-income families; a mission in Brazil to revive the Amazon rainforest; a smoke-free 'green stove' project, using ethanol gel, in Nigeria, which is saving lives and the environment, and additionally generating jobs; an Italian start-up that uses end-of-life tyres on rail networks and turns them into smart solar power plants; and many more.
These innovators and businesses are the harbingers of hope for the future.
Do read, share and, above all, discuss these stories and the learnings they hold for us. Together, we can step up to the challenge, and scale up our efforts.
Editor