Doing the hard work to decarbonize our businesses isn’t optional. It’s also not enough. Hitting the Paris Agreement targets 10 years early requires business leaders to work together to drive progress outside the scope of their own business operations.
By investing in nature-based solutions—along with our decarbonization initiatives—we’re doing both.
One of the answers to the climate challenge has been growing all around us, all along: The natural world. Its soils, forests, grasslands, shrublands, wetlands, and aquatic ecosystems have the unique power to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it. Essentially, we have a vast, underused carbon storage capability that has huge potential, and nature-based solutions are the way to harness that potential.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is clear: Nature-based solutions like forest conservation and reforestation are mission-critical if we hope to keep global temperature increases to 1.5ºC, in line with the Paris Agreement. With involvement and investment from The Climate Pledge signatories, we can scale nature-based solutions to a point where they can have the needed impact on the world—and get us to our ambitious goal.
A complete shift in how we think about and use offsets is fundamental to The Climate Pledge.
By creating a more symbiotic relationship with the natural world through nature-based solutions, signatories aren’t just committing to pushing the boundaries of carbon removal; they’re committing to restoring human and ecological wellbeing. Credible offsets are more than an invaluable tool in our fight against climate change.
They’re the tool for creating a more sustainable world.