As we see the effects of climate change intensify each year, global public opinion is increasingly supportive of green policies and immediate action. In this article we will provide an overview of the climate policies gaining momentum today and break down the statistics behind their growing support.
At Alamo Solutions, we work to provide our clients and partners with foresight into future policies in order to help them react accordingly and competitively, maintaining their status as innovative and forward-thinking leaders. Today's informed choices can help prevent future costs and open up new investment opportunities.
Introduction
As an integral part of our vision at Alamo Solutions, we believe that green investment is the way towards a better future. For this reason, we specialize in making sustainability-informed development and globalization work for anyone. Among our many services, at Alamo we analyze and study climate policies and trends that directly affect companies in order to gain a better understanding of how to help businesses develop in line with these principles.
Global public opinion is consistently leaning more towards greener policies each year. To illustrate this, we will use The Peoples' Climate Vote, a study done in 2021 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that covered 50 countries with over half of the world’s population. The results clearly exhibit that urgent climate action has broad support globally, but also they reveal how people want their policymakers to tackle the crisis; this has greatly shaped our view on current trends and the avenues we should prioritize for our clients.
The world's most popular Green Policies
There are a multitude of ways we can combat the climate crisis, and across the world there are different ideas of what the most impactful solution looks like. The Peoples' Climate Vote asked a total of 1.22 million respondents globally which of the 18 climate policies they would like to see their country pursue to address climate change, with 35% of respondents answering “All”, and 97% supporting at least one of the policies. The four most popular climate policies were forest and land conservation (54%), renewable energies (53%), regulating the agricultural sector (52%), and green investment (50%).
After grouping the 18 policies into 6 subject areas, their popularity is illustrated in the Figure 1 below:
Figure 1: Average number of policies chosen in every area
As is evident from the sheer amount of support these policies have, we anticipate massive regulatory changes in the near future. At Alamo, we work personally with our clients to navigate the constantly changing policies across Europe and the Americas, creating mid or long-term strategies to stay at the vanguard in their sector.
Transitioning to Clean Energy
Transitioning toward clean, renewable energy is critical to tackling climate change. As shown in Figure 2, eight out of ten countries with the highest emissions from the energy sector backed renewable energy, which is a telling trend pointing to the inevitable evolution of these sectors.
Figure 2. Popularity of solar, Wind and Renewable Energy Power in surveyed countries with Highest Emissions from the Electricity/Heating Sectors
The shift to renewable energy for businesses is a long-term investment that will not only improve their economic growth, but subsequently aid to alleviate the climate crisis, an outcome that is just as important.
Green Economy and Public Investment
The majority of people in G20 countries back increased green public investment. These policies support increased government funding for green businesses and jobs to help steer the free market towards sustainable alternatives. As many countries begin to pass COVID-19 economic recovery bills, attention to green public investment is especially important. Right now, in both the public and private sector, we have a chance to reshape our economy and the way that we do business for the better. At Alamo we are committed to helping enterprises with this transformation.
Regulating the Private Sector
There is wide support for mandating companies to cover the external economic costs of pollution, or rather the social cost of carbon+GHGs, and these policies are building popularity in governments across the world today. They range from carbon taxes to ensuring supply chain transparency and manufacturing regulations. Without proper preparation these policies could blindside a business, which is why we work side-by-side with our clients to ensure this doesn’t take place.
Conclusion
The climate crisis is no longer imminent; it’s effects are being felt now. With public demand for political change widespread, in the not too distant future companies will have to adapt to new regulatory structures. By working with Alamo, we will provide you with recommendations based on the current market to reduce future costs and augment opportunities. As was discussed in our most recent Alamo Bite Motivos y ventajas de un modelo de negocio sostenible, making these investments right now can improve current financial performance indicators, pave your entryway into a growing green consumer market, and lower long run costs. The future of business is green, and we want to help you transition into this new reality.
Bibliography
“Investment for Green Growth.” OECD, 23 May 2017, https://www.oecd.org/investment/green.htm.
“The Peoples' Climate Vote.” United Nations Development Programme, 26 Jan. 2021, https://www.undp.org/publications/peoples-climate-vote.
“What Is Carbon Pricing?” What Is Carbon Pricing? | Carbon Pricing Dashboard, https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/what-carbon-pricing.
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