I'm excited to share some personal reflections live from COP27,
where BCG is the exclusive consulting partner. First of all,
this COP is really talking about solution.
It's about implementation and the motto "together for implementation"
is something that I felt in all of my more than 30 discussions I had.
You feel it when you come together with people across the value chain.
Yesterday, for example,
I was in a construction value chain discussion where we really discussed what
can the different actors do to make sure that we decarbonize the whole
value chain. The second one is:
it's so good to be here in person. To be honest, I sometimes reflected,
is it really necessary to travel to a climate event?
But it's so good to hear the different reflections. Yesterday was youth day.
I just talked to the Ghanaian people here.
I had a session with indigenous people from the Amazonas and to really
understand what sustainable actions do to their communities.
It's just uplifting. Now what's happening:
the exciting part is we have 450 projects that we as BCG,
together with the COP, have developed and they are now on the table.
What's done now is to discuss the financing of it. So far,
only 7% of the global capital went in the Global South
for financing of adaptation, and we need to up that.
Of the hundred billion that was promised, only a fraction is flowing.
We need to up that.
And there's one reflection how we can unlock
this bottleneck of amazing
CapEx that needs to flow.
Because those 450 projects require 600 billion of
capital, and that is,
it's not an option not to invest because that's not
zero cost. The cost of inaction is huge,
and it's time to move now before the cost of inaction becomes even bigger
than the CapEx that is required for the 450 projects. Let me just close
with the latest information that I read this morning,
from the UN,
projecting that we are likely to be at plus 11% emissions
by end of this decade, although we should be,
if you follow the 1.5 degrees, at minus 43%.
This is a call for action.
Let me share a metaphor that I heard yesterday during a dinner conversation with
Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank. He said,
"we need to blow our vuvuzela,
that we remember so well from the global soccer tournament in South Africa.
We need to blow it loud and clear,
and it starts with action for ourselves," and BCG is doing that.
We are committed to net zero in 2030 and reducing our
carbon intensity by half in 2025.
That's our own commitment;
and we also know that our biggest lever is supporting our clients
on the journey to net zero to be a leader in the industry.