Can Green Technology Keep Pace With Climate Change?

Being an investor in green technologies has been, at times, a frustrating activity in recent years. Despite research teams working harder than ever to develop new green products, and the money being made available to fund them, many businesses and, in particular, governments from around the world have done little or nothing about climate change or the environment as a whole.

Action has been put on the back burner, and instead, meeting upon meeting takes place, with nothing ever achieved because the agenda is carried over to the next one, when stalemate is met once again.

The Toughest Question

Today, we find ourselves in a position where we have to ask a difficult question. Because so little in the way of difference making, decisive action has been done in recent years, are we standing at a point in time where the level of investment or research that takes place is irrelevant?

Have we reached the stage where the impact of climate change has accelerated beyond what we are able to keep up with through research and science?

Safe Limits

The World Economic Forum certainly seems to think so, mentioning in a recent report that they have ‘concerns that the world is moving beyond the point at which global warming can be contained within safe limits.’ The problem here seems obvious.

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For the best part of the last 20 years, businesses, governments, and individuals have done everything they can to do the minimum possible when it comes to arresting climate change. Instead of trying to keep things within ‘safe limits,’ surely the modus operandi should have been to limit everything that causes emissions where possible and immediately seek alternatives.

Setting targets at world level is as good as setting yourself up to fail, especially as governments aren’t exactly known for their proficiency in meeting their aims. Yet, when they fail, they expect us all to accept their reason for failure to be their initial high level of ‘ambition’ to achieve something so unprecedented.

So what needs to happen now?

Still Time

Thankfully, it does not yet appear that we have gone past a critical point in the history of the planet whereby anything we do now will be irrelevant. However, it is undeniable that action needs to happen now. Primarily, there needs to be a clear focus from everyone who is supposed to be leading the way when it comes to tackling climate change, and a commitment to making it happen.

This will generally have to come from influential governments, especially those that have halted their own investment into certain green initiatives due to economic concerns. Unfortunately, many around the world are going to be faced with a tough decision.

Do they risk the future of the planet to get the economy up and running again in the coming years, or do we forget everything, stop and turn around climate change for good, and accept that the economic doldrums may stick around for a few years?

It remains to be seen what happens, but it is clear that private investment alone is not enough to produce green energy and other alternatives to the way we live our lives.

  Robert Reeve

About the Guest Author:

Robert Reeve is an online content writer with a specific interest in environmental issues, including how materials such as ETFE foil are increasingly used in the construction of eco-friendly residential and commercial buildings.