Key points
Climate change is here and is relevant to everyone
The super platform should not only do a good job in reducing carbon, but also exert a positive impact on the whole society
U.S.-China platforms should work together to address climate change
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During the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, countries around the world have reached a further consensus to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century and to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees as expected by the Paris Agreement, which is the most effective way to reduce the risk of climate crisis in the future. Global politicians, businesses and academics generally believe that economic transformation is imminent in order to delay and eventually reverse climate change.
However, countries around the world, especially developing countries, often face conflicting choices with economic development in the process of carbon reduction. Under the guidance of the new concept of green development, enterprises, especially super-large platform enterprises, should bear what responsibilities and roles should they assume in the process of leading the whole society to the goal of carbon neutrality while completing their own carbon reduction?
Michael Spence, a member of the Academic Committee of LuohanTang and winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, recently proposed at the closed-door seminar on "Green Development of Enterprises in the Form of Dual Carbon" held by Luohantang that large platform companies should be aware of the important responsibilities they can play in carbon reduction, and called on platform companies in China and the United States to explore new cooperation on this issue.
Spencer noted that three events in 2021 have created an extreme sense of urgency about agendas such as energy transition and climate change. The first is the sixth round of assessments released by working group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this summer, which reaffirms to us that climate change is no longer the future, but the changes that are taking place. Collective and positive action is needed in all sectors of all economies to address the disastrous consequences of rising temperatures.
The second thing is the large number of different types of extreme weather events that occur around the world, such as floods in Henan and Shaanxi in the Yellow River Basin in China, and in central Europe, especially in Germany, which have aroused widespread concern in society. People understand that climate change is not just the theories and models of scientists, but more from the perspective of reality. The third is the two huge transformations that human society is experiencing, one is the energy transition and the other is the digital revolution. Everyone knows and expects these factors to be more connected to each other because our economy will run on digital foundations and processes.
The role of large platforms themselves and society
Therefore, Professor Spencer believes that large platforms play a very important role in this process.
First, large platform companies themselves are part of the economic system and also consume a lot of energy, especially electricity. When they commit to being carbon neutral in their operations, in terms of cloud computing services, and upstream and downstream of their supply chains, this will make a huge contribution to the green and low-carbon transition.
In addition, the peculiarity of large platforms lies in their attributes that link large-scale people and organizations across time and space. For example, platforms can therefore influence public behavior in a creative way, helping them understand what their behavior can contribute to carbon neutrality, including buying more low-carbon and green products, enhancing recycling and the use of idle items, which is also an extension of the huge influence of platform companies, which play a key role in responding to climate and environmental change.
Information flow and global collaboration
Another important role of the platform is the flow of technology and data. While there are already many technologies and tools to help us meet the challenges of climate change, Spencer believes that is not enough. "We still need a lot of new mechanisms and technologies to achieve the goal of keeping climate change within 1.5 degrees."
This is a huge challenge, and to accomplish it, Spencer believes that it is first necessary to accept the fact that there are significant differences of perception and friction around the world. Therefore, in the face of major risks such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to make relevant technologies and data more relevant. "This information must be able to flow freely and spread to every corner of the world. The platform is by far the most powerful disseminator of information, helping to ensure that this is achieved," Spencer said in a video address.
In addition, Spencer notes that carbon emissions from the world's top six economic complexes (Europe, North America, China, India, Japan, and Russia) account for 70 percent of the global total, so collaboration and action by these economies is critical to achieving global goals.
At present, world-class mega platforms are mainly concentrated in the United States and China. In the United States, platforms such as Microsoft and Google are leaders in global climate action and have set ambitious climate commitments based on cutting-edge digital technologies to help address the most significant global challenges. Recently, Alibaba also took the lead in releasing the first "Carbon Neutrality Action Report" comparable to the international level among Chinese digital platform technology companies, in addition to committing to alibaba's own carbon emissions (that is, scope 1, 2, 3) neutralization commitment, but also put forward the concept and goal of "3+", which aims to drive the concept and goal of scope 3+ to promote the platform ecological synergy to reduce carbon emissions.
Professor Spencer suggested that if these platforms can work together to address climate change through some cooperation, this will bring great opportunities for global carbon reduction.
conclusion
Professor Spencer believes that climate change has become a major challenge for all mankind. Mega platform companies have an incumbent on tackling climate change. While doing a good job in its own carbon reduction work, the platform has the obligation to help the whole society through innovation to achieve the arduous task of controlling the heating below 1.5 degrees. Platforms across countries should work together to address challenges.