“Race To Zero is not a race to zero emissions, but to zero degrees Celsius.” It was with this statement that the President of Suzano, Walter Schalka, began his participation in the Marrakech Partnership Future Lab: Reimagining Carbon Removals panel, which was part of the agenda of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate (UNFCC) for the COP26 and brought together leaders of the business segment and institutions linked to carbon reduction.

Event moderator Delia Meth-Cohn, co-founder of Rethinking Removals, opened the round of debates by asking participants how it is possible to have an industrial sector that works to help the climate by removing carbon from the atmosphere. Nili Gilbert, board member of the Rockefeller Foundation, responded that one of the best initiatives is to increase investments in projects in the Southern Hemisphere, so that this becomes a broad axis of removal, based on the practices implemented to maintain the planet’s temperature at up to 1.5 °C.

For Julio Friedmann, senior researcher at Columbia University, solutions to remove large amounts of carbon must use both technology and nature-based solutions, without having to choose one or the other, always keeping the focus on controlling the rise in carbon. global average temperature.

Renewable energy
Walter Schalka stated that it is necessary to work on solutions that will transform the future, that technology is needed to change the use of electricity to solar and wind energy, as well as investing in reforestation and the regeneration of degraded lands.

James Mwangi, founder of Climate Action Platform – Africa, underscored the importance of technology-based climate change to sustain Africa’s natural infrastructure. “This is a fight for everyone, which will last for many years. We need technology to decarbonise the planet, generate jobs and make the poles of nature remain as poles of nature,” he said.

Asked about the necessary investment and the fund that developed countries pledged to create to help developing countries, one of the issues being debated at COP26, Schalka was emphatic in saying that the investment’s value is possible.

“The market will benefit many economies until the cost of carbon reaches zero, as we no longer have carbon to emit,” he added, citing that during the pandemic some countries even invested in their respective populations, through subsidies, even $73 million. “And now there is a debate on whether it will be possible to invest US$ 200 billion a year to save the world? Of course, it is possible to create the fund with the collaboration of several countries. We have to do this and we are going to do it now.”

In the same line of thought, Leo Prieto, CEO of Lemu, said he is optimistic about the progress of different solutions presented by the companies. “I know it’s hard to see right now, but we are experiencing a new industrial revolution and the future will be amazing,” he declared.

Launched by Suzano, the 2050 Agora initiative seeks to engage other companies in tackling the climate, through various action fronts, to show that by 2050 it will be too late to reverse the situation and that the goals need to be short-term.