Setting the sights on a carbon neutral future

Achieving a zero-carbon future may seem to some like a wild ask, but some of the world’s biggest countries and corporations are already envisioning the financial and environmental benefits of carbon neutrality. For instance, the government of China has said it will aim to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, and General Motors, the largest U.S. automaker, has announced plans to be carbon-neutral by 2040.

With the transport sector making up 23 per cent of total energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions, much of the world’s efforts towards carbon neutrality will focus on rethinking these systems.

As highlighted by the recent Managing Infrastructure Assets for Sustainable Development handbook developed by UN DESA and the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), older assets such as transport systems often remain neglected, and new ones are built without putting in place sustainable, effective frameworks for keeping them running over the long term. Both energy and transport are critical, high impact areas for investing in local capacities to mobilize financing for sustainable development, including for reducing climate change-related shocks to infrastructure assets.

To highlight practical solutions, UN DESA will host a virtual event on 28 April, “Imagining the carbon-neutral future: Transformations in energy and transport,” the second session in the UN DESA Global Policy Dialogues for Climate Action series. The Department will bring together innovators and leading voices in the fields of clean energy and sustainable transport to discuss ways to rebuild these systems to minimize their negative impacts on the environment.

The dialogue will serve as a stepping stone to the upcoming UN High-level Dialogue on Energy (New York, September 2021), the UN Sustainable Transport Conference (Beijing, date tbc), and UN Climate Change Conference (Glasgow, November 2021), advancing the global conversation on the many interlinkages between energy, transport and climate action.

The Global Policy Dialogue on “Imagining the carbon-neutral future: Transformations in energy and transport” will be held from 8:30 to 10 a.m. EDT on 28 April. It will be broadcast live on UN DESA’s Facebook page. Stay up-to-date on upcoming events by browsing this page.

Photo: UNDP Moldova