The 89 Percent Solution

Mission 2025 was set up to amplify the voice of leaders across business, finance and civil society to embolden governments to deliver climate action. Carbon Copy joined the coalition last year, not only to urge our own government to deliver on promises already made but also to celebrate leadership that people everywhere are taking, at every level.

The annual UN climate summit next week, COP30, represents one of the biggest international opportunities this year to continue this effort and secure the shift away from the old economy and towards a new one.

Economically, we continue to underestimate what’s possible. Over the last ten years, we have collectively exceeded forecasts for building solar capacity by 1600%, wind capacity by 300% and electric vehicles by 40%.

The transition is proving too big to ignore; companies and industries are shifting because there’s so much more to gain than lose.

Politics is also falling behind reality. This year, trade wars, culture wars and real wars have created political resistance for climate action. The impression given by many populists is that rolling back on national commitments is what the people want.

And yet, these voices do not capture the will of the vast majority of the population around the world.

The 89 Percent Project is a year-long global journalistic effort to highlight a decisive but little-known fact about climate change. 89 percent of the world’s people want their governments to be doing more to address climate change.

Around the world, climate impacts continue to worsen, with vulnerable communities hit the hardest. Meanwhile, the speed and scale of implementation is not sufficient to get us back on track for delivering the Paris Agreement (adopted by 195 nations, ten years ago, at COP 21).

The goal of the Paris Agreement is to stop the world’s average temperature rising more than two degrees, or ideally 1.5C. Most experts agree that this global agreement has helped speed up climate action around the world, but not by enough.

The opportunity is to move much faster. In the UK, the overwhelming majority view to do more about the climate crisis is backed up by the majority of local councils who have declared a climate emergency and set their own ambitious goals. Over half of all UK local authorities have a target to get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, twenty years ahead of the nation’s legally-binding 2050 target.

Net zero is an important policy metric that’s become the yardstick of climate action. However, it provides little indication of real progress in addressing people’s everyday concerns and wellbeing, or the disparity between places and communities that are impacted differently by climate change.

‘Net zero’ not a rallying cry; it doesn’t motivate the majority of the population who want more climate action.

At Carbon Copy, we’ve argued the shift towards something new has always been about more than reaching net zero and more than what happens at annual climate summits. Both are really important markers and are part of the journey. But it’s the 89 percent that lies at the heart of the solution.

COP30 is an opportunity to widen rather than concentrate the debate and engagement on climate action. The centre of gravity is shifting, from negotiating rooms halfway round the world to local economies and civil societies.

People are not waiting for others elsewhere to take the lead, but are collaborating and building a better future locally. Here, the powerful drumbeat of climate action is defined by doing more good rather than doing less harm.