Today is Monday, October 2, 2023
Using remote sensing and satellite technology everybody can see where deforestation is being avoided or trees are being planted (maybe tundra areas in Canada and Russia).
But to really give transparency on how countries and companies are doing in their their transitions towards a low-carbon economy, well, that depends on journalists and announcements.
You may have seen recent push backs in United Kingdom, Sweden and LEGO, days after the release of the First Global Stocktake report by the UNFCCC. As you may recall, no specific country was mentioned in that report but the call was for radical climate action.
In Sweden, according to The Guardian, the government announced a significant reduction it the country’s climate budget, admitting an increase in CO2 emissions and putting its 2045 targets at risk. Sweden was the first country to set a net-zero goal.
In United Kingdom, according to BBC, news of delays in the bans on fossil fuel heating for certain homes and on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
For the UK Prime Minister, the government could not impose "unacceptable costs" linked to reducing emissions on British families and poorer households.
About LEGO, the company annouced discontinuing the project aimed at replacing fossil-based plastics with recycled bottles. According to the press release, after 2 years of testing, the company said the bricks would not ultimately result in lower carbon emissions.
On the other hand, LEGO tested more than 300 different materials, some haven’t met the company's requirements , some were successful.
According to LEGO, "This is the nature of innovation – especially when it comes to something as complex and ambitious as our sustainable materials programme. Some things will work, others won’t. We have learned a lot and will apply those learnings as we continue to develop new materials and explore other ways to make our bricks more sustainable. We believe it’s important we’re transparent about our sustainability efforts."
Click at the image below to watch a 3 minutes video "The Global Goals | Halftime 2023" presented during the UN Sustainable Development Goals Summit in New York last week. In the original film (Any Other Sunday, by Oliver Stone, from 1999), Cameron Diaz owns the team and Al Pacino is the coach. He encourages the team to revert the result of the game at halftime.
