High-profile Mission 2020 campaign led by Christiana Figueres launches today, with a goal to encourage urgent climate action to ramp up emissions cuts in the next three years
Global policymakers should set their sights on 2020 as the deadline for delivering the rapid emissions cuts needed to save the world from dangerous global warming, according to a new campaign spearheaded by former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.
Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who as chief of the UN’s climate programme led 197 nations into a global climate pact in Paris in 2015, will officially launch Mission 2020 later today – a new programme designed to encourage urgent action on emissions over the next three years.
Mission 2020 identifies the end of the decade as a “climate turning point” – a deadline by which nations must start delivering significant cuts to greenhouse gas emissions if the world is to protect vulnerable populations from the worst impacts of climate change and deliver the UN’s wider Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Although global emissions have remained flat for the last three years even as the global economy has grown, scientists agree the world must start bending the emissions curve downwards and realise steep year-on-year reductions in emissions levels in order to hold global temperatures stable.
Mission 2020 has set six targets for the end of the decade that will act as indicators to judge whether the world is set to deliver deep emissions cuts. They include ensuring renewables outcompete fossil fuels as new electricity sources worldwide, that zero-emission transport is the “preferred form” of all new mobility in world cities and transport routes, and that heavy industries such as the iron, steel, cement and chemicals sectors have committed to reshaping their business in line with the Paris climate goals.
Figueres will later today convene a meeting of high-level figures in an attempt to galvanise climate action across all industries. Attendees will include the economist Lord Stern, Astro Teller, director of X – Google’s secret research division, and Helen Morrissey, head of personal investing at Legal & General Investment Management.
“Everyone has a right to prosper, and if emissions do not begin their rapid decline by 2020, the world’s most vulnerable people will suffer even more from the devastating impacts of climate change,” Figueres said in a statement. “What has been missing since Paris is a near-term focal point for action, which is why we have brought together some of the best minds on the subject to collectively demonstrate that the arc of transformation to a fossil free energy system is possible.
“We have a collective responsibility to raise ambition, scale up our actions and move forward faster together to safeguard the sustainable development goals and protect the inalienable right to life of our and future generations. Let’s not be late.”
Figueres is a highly respected figure in the international environmental and political community, widely credited with reviving the UNFCCC from the bitter disappointment of the failed climate talks in Copenhagen to the success of the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The launch of Mission 2020 marks her first high-profile role since her failed attempt to win the post of UN Secretary-General last year following her departure from the UNFCCC.
The launch was welcomed by Figures’ successor at UNFCCC Patricia Espinosa, who stressed that high-level collaboration will be key to delivering the goals of the Paris Agreement. “The Paris Agreement expresses the determination of the world to work together to solve the climate change challenge,” she said in a statement. “Limiting global warming to well below two degrees Celsius and realising the full potential of Paris means global emissions need to decline rapidly and as soon as possible. This will be key towards ending poverty, supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and unlocking the inordinate opportunities from this transformation.”
Meanwhile former US Vice President and high profile climate campaigner Al Gore also welcomed the launch, stressing the importance of its role in “anchoring” climate action to key moments in time to ensure we accurately track progress.
“We must see global warming pollution decline as rapidly as possible, and declining all the way down to net zero by mid-century, if not sooner,” he said in a statement. “In order to safeguard the future of human civilization, this is the minimum we must achieve – so I am thrilled to see Christiana putting her energy into the challenge of bringing attention to this critical milestone.”
