A summit in Paris this week will bring together the heads of government from more than 100 countries to grapple with financial scarcity as the single-biggest impediment to climate action.
Fear of greenwashing has hamstrung the growing market, with data suggesting fewer offsets are being claimed against emitters’ carbon footprints.
Despite initial complaints about the Inflation Reduction Act, the EU has not reached for the panic button, even as companies shift their postures in response to competing incentives.
The transition has been painful, with Europeans getting hit by a roughly $1 trillion energy bill last year, only cushioned by government subsidies.
The cement industry makes as much as 8% of the world's emissions — meeting global climate goals would require reducing that to zero.
The deal included a historic provision to set up a fund to help poorer countries face the harm caused by climate change.
That firms set their own objectives to evade interest penalties incentivizes them to aim low, as so-called greenwashing enters a $22 trillion corporate bond market.
The next three months before countries meet in Sharm El-Sheikh for COP27 will show whether the era of cooperation has given way to competition.
The annual United Nations-sponsored Conference of Parties is scheduled for November in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The official commitment would come close to a year after countries were told to submit updated targets by the U.N. before a summit last November.
