COP28 offers nations a chance to re-centre their climate compass

War, geopolitical fragmentation and cultural conflict have our world fraying at its edges, yet the existential threat of climate change remains ever-present. The UN's COP28 climate meeting convenes this month, offering leaders another chance to refocus their efforts to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and spur a just energy transition. Staying on course is mission critical.   

Nearly 40 years ago, British scientists analyzing data on UV light hitting the Earth at remote Antarctic research stations made a startling finding: a hole in the ozone layer was opening every spring. The swift multilateral response that ensued bundled the forces of government and the private sector, putting our planet's life-enabling sunscreen on a path to recovery.

The world reacted remarkably quickly. Just two years after the hole's discovery in 1985, the landmark Montreal Protocol set a timeline for phasing out ozone-depleting chemicals. The treaty's universal ratification helped speed a shift toward alternatives.

As thousands of officials and others head to the United Nations' COP28 meeting in Dubai starting 30 November to discuss progress on limiting and preparing for climate change, it's worth remembering the push to fix the ozone hole. It shows mountains can be moved when policymakers, regulators and business leaders work across societies to make bold decisions to solve our biggest problems.

For me, collaboration on the ozone layer is a model for tackling today's far greater challenge: climate change. The urgency has grown as we seek to preserve a hospitable, habitable planet. This was again made clear as this past summer in the Northern Hemisphere became the Earth's hottest on record. Climate change is driving severe weather, contributing along with escalating economic values to a 5–7% annual growth trend in insured natural catastrophe losses documented by Swiss Re over the past three decades.

For going on three decades, COP meetings have offered a high-profile platform for the now-197 countries party to the international UN treaty on climate change to gather, exchange ideas and assess their progress in preventing dangerous human interference with our climate.

This last element – assessing progress on an issue of existential importance  – is particularly critical at COP28 in Dubai. It's the first time nations formally take stock of whether they're fulfilling their Paris Agreement commitments, and if not, what must be done to kick-start efforts to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The goal is reachable but at risk: governments are on track to produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be needed to achieve the temperature limit, according to a new UN-backed report. Consequently, it's good to see that leaders of the two biggest economies, the United States and China, have resumed more active cooperation on this issue ahead of COP28, including shared commitments to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030.

As co-chair of the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, I'm part of an international consortium of 126 companies with 12 million employees committed to achieving the 2015 Paris Agreement's net-zero ambitions. From 2019 to 2021, for instance, Alliance companies achieved a 10% emissions reduction as we pursue our goal of cutting our CO2 footprint by a billion metric tonnes by 2030.  

Ahead of COP28, Alliance partners including Swiss Re have penned an open letter to world leaders asking them to work with us on transformative policies and actions to accelerate the public-private push to address climate change.

Among our proposals, we're asking that governments rapidly scale up renewable energy investments, including in-grid infrastructure, like storage capacity, necessary for integrating solar and wind. In addition to investment, we'd like to see targeted policies to better enable the private sector to improve its energy efficiency.

Managing our energy transition effectively is crucial to ensuring the shift now underway from a fossil fuel-based economy to one reliant on low-carbon resources is orderly. This enduring transition must protect lives and livelihoods, making support for the re-skilling of affected workers essential.

The Alliance is also asking governments to commit to low-emission public procurement policies. In the European Union, public procurement makes up 14% of the economic bloc's gross domestic product. Such a commitment would send a powerful market signal to deepen adoption of low-carbon technologies throughout the broader economy.

Additionally, while emission mitigation must anchor our efforts to limit climate change, Alliance members are also seeking government commitments to set appropriate carbon removal targets. Accelerating investments in nature-based and technology-driven carbon removal like those Swiss Re supports through our partnership with Climeworks can also help.

Carbon removal is critical. Beyond 2050 society must achieve net-negative emissions, removing up to 20 billion tonnes of CO2 annually and storing it forever.

The Alliance's recommendations for governments participating in COP28 talks are ambitious. Nonetheless, they offer a science-based approach focused on common ground where the public and private sectors can collaborate on actions to reshape society, public health and the global economy during a just transition.

I also acknowledge our recommendations aren't quick fixes. They'll unfold over decades. New challenges will arise as we navigate lingering ones. In particular in our digital age, slow change like this may be difficult to accept given we've become so accustomed to immediate results.

But consider this: Even fixing the ozone hole, something many view as having reaped swift, unequivocal rewards, will take a long time. While the ozone layer over the Antarctic has passed significant milestones, full recovery may take beyond 2070 because stratospheric chemical declines take longer over the Antarctic than elsewhere.

The most important thing isn't how long a worthwhile endeavor takes. It is that everyone – from government, business and civil society – works to ensure the endeavor stays on course. At COP28, this should be the guiding principle for leaders shaping our climate future.