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Forget Greta: are corporate bosses the real climate heroes?🦸

Forget Greta: are corporate bosses the real climate heroes?🦸

Plus: A climate plan that truly sucks

Happy Sunday! Today we’ll discuss the broken climate pledge that could be a ‘travesty’ for the planet, explore a bold new plan to tackle global warming, and ask whether corporate bosses could be the real heroes when it comes to cutting carbon emissions (spoiler alert: obviously not). Let’s dive right in 👇:

Matcha's Gulp

Wealthy nations fail to splash climate cash 💸

Back in 2009, a group of wealthy countries pledged $100 billion per year to help developing nations deal with the impacts of climate change. But surprise surprise: they still haven’t delivered on their promise.

UN Development Programme Administrator Achim Steiner isn’t too happy about this. In a recent interview, he called the lack of support a “travesty” with the potential to be “one of the most tragic errors in history”. Will Steiner’s strong language finally spur these wealthy nations to action?

This new climate plan really sucks🔥

We’re releasing too much CO2 into the atmosphere – so why don’t we just suck it back out again? In theory, this sounds pretty intuitive. But in practice, ‘direct air capture’ uses so much energy that the process can actually be counterproductive.

Enter Fervo Energy. The startup aims to use geothermal heat to power a purpose-built carbon capture plant, with the potential to build more if the pilot works out. Using the planet’s heat to help cool it down is a pretty neat idea – but this doesn’t mean we can take our eye off the ball when it comes to reducing emissions in the first place.

Forget Greta: are corporate bosses the real climate heroes?🦸

Last year, bosses at some of Europe’s biggest companies received hefty bonuses for helping to cut carbon emissions. But according to a new report, these “surprisingly high” payouts don’t reflect the real progress these companies have made when it comes to tackling climate change. Which is to say, not enough.

One of the authors warns that the current system “just results in more pay – not more climate action”. This whole thing smells remarkably like greenwashing…