Reflections on COP28
By Douglas Hansen-Luke, Executive Chairman
COP28 deserves to be looked back on with positivity and promise. The conference was a significant success, in large part due to the vast number of enthusiastic and passionate people that I met there.
From global leaders and delegates, to leading scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs, alongside the world’s most active investors, everybody was in tune with a collective purpose: to engage in the necessary conversations that will, we hope, prompt real action against climate change.
What better culmination, then, that on the final morning of the year’s most significant climate conference, a historic deal was signed which signals the end of the fossil fuel era and is underpinned by pledges for deep emissions cuts and scaled-up financing. I, for one, commend the near-200 nations that were able to reach this collective agreement, in a turn of genuine solidarity and ambition to keep our climate targets alive.
The climate crisis is one of the greatest global challenges we face and, as such, warrants a global response. We must all take responsibility, and work together, if we are to deliver real change; an attitude embodied by the deadline day pledge.
We must not forget, also, that the largest producers of hydrocarbons, be that nations or businesses, are often also the largest investors in renewables. It is, therefore, important that we work with the largest carbon emitters to transition to a net zero world, rather than abandoning and isolating them.
Such a result couldn’t have come at a better time. Hopes and expectations in the lead-up to COP28 were particularly high, not least because the need for the conference to deliver a substantive change in direction for climate action was, arguably, more stark than ever.
Approximately 3.6 billion people already live in areas at significant risk of climate change; a number that is only expected to rise. More than that, on our current trajectory, Earth’s most crucial ecosystems – coral reefs, ice sheets and tropical rainforests, to name a few – have reached a tipping point, past which they are exposed to irreversible disruption. Let us not forget the record temperatures and numerous critical weather events the world over has endured, too. These challenges each demonstrate that more needs to be done, fast.
Future Planet Capital is proud and determined to be a part of the efforts to protect our planet, through our long-term investments in some of the most innovative and exciting technologies designed to present viable solutions to the climate crisis. Take Captura and its new methods of carbon capture, for example, or Regent Craft and its novel hybrid technology that could revolutionise coastal travel.
I was encouraged to see first-hand the positive and widespread impact of the work of our partners and portfolio companies within our network. For example, on OceanX’s state-of-the-art marine vessel, which makes use of some of the most advanced gene-sequencing equipment from Oxford Nanopore. Or at the many Blue Ocean-focused events held by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, our partners in managing the Blue Ocean Mandate.
I also witnessed the extensive work of Barclays, another partner, in the climate startup space, and saw the likes of NutriSan and Roslin Technologies, two more portfolio companies, championing their biotechnological solutions to environmental and agricultural exploitation.
My time at COP28 served as a welcome and heartening reminder that the work we’re doing is driving real change and making a significant impact in our efforts to solve one the world’s most important challenges.
It is clearer than ever that venture capital has a crucial role to play in financing solutions to the climate crisis. Before the world’s governments and multinational companies invest billions into proven technologies, venture capital companies like ours must identify at an early stage those technologies which are likely to have the biggest impact in their fields. We must then support founders as they commercialise the work they have conducted in their universities and research labs and help them scale up and provide their solutions to the world.
There is no doubt that more work must be done, but we must use the progress made at COP28 as a foundation on which we can continue to work together to deliver real change when it’s needed most.