Why the fight against climate change needs more win-win solutions

The new report from the IPCC highlights how self-interest could end up saving us all

Barrier Reef off the coast of Belize.
(Image credit: (REUTERS/Lou Dematteis/Spectral Q/Handout))

This weekend, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report, which amounts to the starkest warning yet that the world is on unsustainable path toward accelerated climate change. But in a survey filled with dour news, there was evidence that governments have hit on win-win solutions that can overcome the shortsighted political self-interest that has dogged the issue for decades.

The IPCC's Synthesis Report aims to summarize and contextualize a wide body of scientific work in language that policymakers can understand, in an effort to compel them to act in a way commensurate with the totality of the risk before them. It details the radical changes necessary to stave off a calamitous future of resource deprivation and extreme weather risk. If the world does not put itself on a path to zero-carbon by 2100, the probability is extremely high that we will not avoid the worst effects of global warming.

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Neil Bhatiya

Neil Bhatiya is a Policy Associate at The Century Foundation, where he works on issues related to U.S. foreign policy, with a specific focus on South Asia and climate change.