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“For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise. And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and our weather will become more extreme. Arctic warming is disproportionately high and what happens in the Arctic affects all of us.”

So says Prof Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

On May 9, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that there is now a 50:50 chance of global temperatures reaching the 1.5C threshold within the next five years.

The Paris Agreement was signed by the world’s governments, committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limiting global temperature increase to 2C by 2010, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5C.

In 2015, the chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5C was close to zero. In 2021 the global average temperature was 1.1C above pre-industrial baselines.

At the same time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports make it clear that the gap between what we are doing now, compared to what we should be doing in order to maintain a fair chance of an inhabitable planet, is still widening, even if the rate at which the gap is widening is slowing down.

Is our business community concerned?

It still seems that much of the business community remains self-centred and blinded by supposed profits that do not actually account for the damage that their organisations have created in the process because those costs were simply not accounted for by the firm and simply externalised – to be dealt with and paid for by others – society.

And what of government? Are governments truly engaged to create resilience for their populations beyond economic concerns?

Climate resilience and sustainable development need to be central to the goals of business (big and small) as well as governments. How do we achieve this?

Some believe that the business-as-usual approach is at least serving the current generation.

The reality is that large parts of the world’s population are left behind, as is the case in Latin America. According to the World Inequality Report 2022, the top ten per cent of earners capture 55 per cent of national income and own 77 per cent of the wealth, compared to 36 per cent and 58 per cent in Europe. This makes Latin America one of the most unequal regions in the world.

Add to this economic slowdown due to covid19 and the disruptions due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and it is easy to see how that further inflames underlying economic tensions, particularly as the region continues to suffer from persistently high perceived corruption.

There has been some movement. Over the past two years, global issuance of green bonds nearly doubled – from US$270 billion in 2020 to an estimate