(GERMANY)
A new initiative to identify 1000 solutions that can accelerate the shift to a sustainable world has been launched at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23).
Innovators Magazine was at the launch of the World Alliance for Efficient Solutions platform in Bonn this evening, which is being led by ‘serial pioneer’ Bertrand Piccard – and his team.
Bertrand, Initiator and Chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation, was one of the pilots that made history last year, flying the entirely solar-powered, Solar Impulse plane, around the world. And now the Swiss legend is on a mission to show decision-makers worldwide 1000 innovations that can contribute to targets set down in the Paris Agreement – as well as make them money.
“Technology and solutions are here now. The world is living in the past,” said Bertrand. “We need to embrace efficient technologies, because they are much more than ‘ecological’, they are ‘logical’. They create jobs and generate profit, while also reducing CO2 emissions and protecting the environment. Even if climate change didn’t exist, they would make sense. Clean growth is much better than the dirty status quo we have today.”
All solutions will be rigorously assessed by an expert panel to confirm they ‘can protect the environment in a profitable way’.
“Today, thousands of solutions exist that can boost economic growth while preserving nature, but they remain unknown to decision-makers and are not implemented at industry level,” added Bertrand. “Our goal is to select 1000 solutions that are both clean and profitable and bring them to decision-makers to demonstrate that they must urgently stop compromising for minimal targets and adopt much more ambitious environmental and energy policies.”
The solutions will be presented at COP24 in 2018, to encourage world and business leaders to harness them for environmental and financial gain.
