Startup develops climate model
EU countries are lagging far behind the Paris climate targets
4/10/2023 8:02 am
How climate-friendly do companies and countries operate? And how would the earth heat up if we continue as before? A startup has developed a model to provide answers to these questions. Germany does not fare particularly well.
According to an analysis, all EU countries are still a long way from the goal formulated in the Paris climate agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is based on model calculations by the Frankfurt start-up Right. Based on Science (Right) on the basis of climate measures already taken. Not included are announced projects. In this, Germany comes off worse than other EU countries.
The start-up has developed a model that expresses the climate impact of companies, buildings or financial portfolios, for example from government bonds, in degrees Celsius: the earth would warm up by the year 2100 if the entire world was just as emission-intensive as the unit examined. The analysis indicates which paths of warming will be achieved if states continue to do business-as-usual.
When calculating the temperature paths, Right only considers climate protection measures that have already been implemented. Measures that have been announced but not implemented are not included because implementation is difficult to predict. Laws such as the planned end for combustion cars and other projects can improve the value by 2100.
Germany at 4.4 degrees
The EU has set itself the goal of being climate-neutral by 2050, and Germany wants to achieve this by 2045. According to the calculation, Croatia and Cyprus perform best among the EU countries. If the whole world were to do business like the two countries, global warming would be 3.1 degrees by 2100. For Germany, the value is 4.4 degrees, slightly better than Luxembourg (5.3), the Czech Republic (5.2) and Estonia (5.2). 3.7 degrees were calculated for France and Italy and 3.5 degrees for Spain.
Right calculates the CO₂ emissions per inhabitant of a country from the current level to the year 2100 and assumes a continuation of the previous decarbonization trend. The model puts the forecast emissions in relation to paths that show what reduction would be necessary to achieve the 1.5 degree target. Then, assuming that the whole world has the same climate impact as the country, the resulting global warming is calculated.
“Green” investments are gaining in importance
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently warned that without drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are harmful to the climate, the 1.5-degree target for global warming would already be exceeded by the 2030s. And the UN climate secretariat assumed in October that global warming could amount to 2.5 degrees by 2100.
“Looking at the greenhouse gas emissions of countries is often distorted, since it does not directly show to what extent a country is on a Paris-compliant reduction path,” explained Right founder Hannah Helmke. The model makes climate risks transparent and helps investors to compare financial investments. “Green” investments have gained in importance on the financial markets. Banks are launching sustainable funds on a large scale, investors are more critical of climate-damaging investments – also because in an emergency there could be lawsuits, as at VW in the diesel scandal. However, there are often allegations that financial investments are presented better than they are.
According to the company, around a third of the 40 DAX companies are among the customers of the startup Right, which was founded in 2016. The strategic partner of the startup is the sustainability bank GLS.