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The economics of COP26: How to mobilize $1 trillion needed to meet net zero target

COP26 has come and gone. Both the public and private sectors, as well as the media, around the world are ardently assessing its achievements or lack of thereof. The climate talks in Glasgow witnessed firsthand the passion of youth demanding that governments act with greater urgency, while their country representatives worked extra hours to find common ground on the details of the agreement.

COP26 did not unveil a treaty on par with the 2015 Paris Agreement but exhorted countries to take steps to keep global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius until the end of the century. Leaders of developing nations demanded a trillion dollars over the next three decades from developed countries to adopt to and mitigate the climate change. Advanced countries, whose carbon pollution over generations caused the problem, agreed to this funding commitment for developing nations with the goal of eventually achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Net zero is when a country's carbon emissions are offset by taking out equivalent carbon from the atmosphere, so that emissions in balance are zero.