COP27: The Simple Numbers That Are Driving the Agenda

This week COP27, the global meeting of governments to address climate change, is meeting in Egypt. The agenda is expected to be focused on urgency, climate finance and adaptation.

Here are the stark, simple numbers that set the agenda:

	Population	Global Share of Emissions	CO2e Per Person
Global North	771 Million	48%	31
Global South	3.8 Billion	12%	1.6

Everything drives from this disparity. The Global South is already suffering from the effects of climate change – such as the recent floods in Pakistan – with less economic capacity to rebuild and recover. And yet they contributed so little to the global problem of climate change.

The disparity puts Climate Finance high on the COP27 agenda. At the conference, Climate Finance refers to payments from developed countries to developing countries. In 2009 the Global North promised $100 billion per year in development funds to the Global South, but the pledge has not been met.

But, there is another channel of coordination and payments between the Global North and Global South, the voluntary carbon market. With new issuances at $2 billion per year, this payment stream consists of projects such as tree planting, sustainable farming practices and scalable plastic capture in the Global South. It is an important source of emissions reduction, global payments and drives financial capital into the carbon reduction system, accelerating change.

For example, Salesforce launched a Carbon Credit Marketplace in September of this year. Serving business customers, the marketplace connects vetted emission reduction projects from around the globe to the needs of the Global North. This scales Salesforce’s impact in both hemispheres.

And finally there is a set of urgency to this year’s meeting. While scientists have set out the goal of 45% emissions reduction by 2030 to avoid a climate disaster, over the past year global emissions went in the other direction,and we’re on a track of 10% emissions increase by 2030.

Taking stock of all these numbers, GLYNT is doubling down on our key contribution: Sustainability data you can rely on. There is no way to scale accelerants such as the voluntary carbon market without trusted data.

And, we’re doubling down on our mission: To enable every home and business to produce and profit from their sustainability data. The flywheel of profitability is key to acceleration. 

COP27 is an important reminder that the challenge before us is urgent and enormous. We look forward to working with an ever growing ecosystem that brings financial capital into climate solutions, laying down the foundation for speed and scale through awesome sustainability data.