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Microsoft Research Summit 2021 • Videos

Research talk: When climate is everything, all systems must change

Curbing carbon pollution to halt warming at 1.5 degrees and adapt to climate impacts requires recalibrating our financial system to support energy, transport, and food systems transitions. Current prices, from carbon to energy to food, don’t reflect our values on nature and its ecosystem services, clean air, or a healthy diet. Embedded in climate action is the idea that those who caused the problem (the advanced industrialized economies) have a responsibility to provide resources for those who didn’t. The question of who pays for our necessary transition to a green and more inclusive future is often polarizing nationally and the subject of underwhelming negotiation internationally. Climate action is too often framed as a cost, but it is the cost of inaction that should concern us as well as the expense of undermining the future. Who should bear the costs of transitions? How should we finance the future and ensure that everyone benefits? Where and how should the public and private sectors come together to ensure speed and scale in transition?

Learn more about the 2021 Microsoft Research Summit: https://Aka.ms/researchsummit (opens in new tab)