Climate change predictions should stimulate us into action

The question about climate change is no longer whether it is real. The question is what the world is going to look like for generations yet unborn. Despite the global community's best intentions to keep global warming below a 2C increase from the pre-industrial climate, higher levels of warming are increasingly likely. 
Scientists agree that countries' current emission pledges and commitments under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change would most likely result in 3.5-4C warming. And the longer those pledges remain unmet, the more likely it is that we will be living in a world that is four degrees warmer by the end of this century. The lack of action on climate change not only risks putting prosperity out of reach for millions of people in the developing world; it also threatens to roll back decades of sustainable development.   Care must be taken so as not to focus only on doomsday scenarios. In fact, there are tremendously exciting possibilities in what it would look like to live in a very low-carbon world. Our work on inclusive green growth shows that, through more efficient and smarter use of energy and natural resources, there are opportunities to drastically reduce the climate impact of development without slowing poverty alleviation or economic growth. Those initiatives include: putting of fossil fuel and other harmful subsidies to better use; factoring the value of the natural environment into economic decision-making; expanding public and private expenditures on green infrastructure that is able to withstand extreme weather; investing in urban public transport systems designed to minimise carbon emission and maximise access to jobs and services; supporting carbon pricing and international and national emissions trading schemes; and increasing energy efficiency – especially in buildings – and the share of renewable power produced. That is our challenge. The best and brightest companies and developed and developing countries should be encouraged to seize new opportunities connected to inclusive green growth. They must know that the path to economic growth could very well be engaging in finding new technologies and new approaches of mitigating climate change. Can we create an enormous market for new technologies focused on mitigation of climate change? I think there's only one answer: we simply must. We at GreenEco hope that  the vision of economic opportunity arising from the need to create a low-carbon world inspires us to create new technologies. It is these technologies that can become drivers of economic growth as well as saviours of our planet from catastrophe.