Global Climate Restoration Task Force Launched

New Private Sector Investments Signal Major Tipping Point for Emerging Multi-Trillion Dollar Market Opportunity

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A new report released by Arizona State University Thunderbird School of Global Management indicates that there are $1-3 trillion annually of emerging market opportunities with the deployment of climate restoration solutions by 2030, with an additional $3-5 trillion market opportunities from deployment of natural solutions per year by 2030.

Rick Parnell, CEO, of the Foundation for Climate Restoration stated, “The multi-trillion dollar climate restoration market opportunity should rapidly mobilize innovators to identify the best mix of solutions that are safe, scaleable, financeable, and permanently store CO2.  Climate restoration solutions should be deployed at a large scale as soon as possible to address the climate emergency. Our work is about galvanizing a movement to ensure a habitable planet for future generations.”

To catalyze and connect the mounting climate restoration initiatives to reach the scale necessary to achieve climate restoration, the Global Climate Restoration Task Force was launched in conjunction with the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland with initiating partners: Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University (ASU), the Foundation for Climate Restoration, The Presidency Republic of Kenya, Ice911 Research, Ocean-Climate Trust, NEXUS, Office of County Supervisor Dave Cortese, Santa Clara County, California, Earth Day Network, and Earth Uprising.

Leaders in the global movement for climate restoration are demonstrating momentum including:

  • This week Microsoft announced it will be carbon negative by 2030, and launched a $1 billion fund to finance carbon reduction, capture, and removal technologies over the next four years.
  • In August 2019, Stripe committed to pay, at any available price, for the direct removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and its sequestration in secure, long-term storage.
  • In December 2019, Goldman Sachs pledged to spend $750 billion on sustainable finance projects over the next decade.
  • In December 2019, a record 631 investors managing over US $37 trillion signed the Global Investor Statement to Governments on Climate Change, which called for acceleration of private sector investment into the low carbon transition, and commit to improve climate-related financial reporting.
  • In December 2019, Blue Planet Ltd and KDC Announced A Global Partnership to scale carbon negative concrete worldwide to the company making limestone aggregate to produce carbon-negative concrete that allows for carbon-negative building materials to be readily available for the global commercial market and will help remove the excess trillion tons of COfrom the atmosphere. “There are over 5,000 identified sites for Blue Planet and KDC. If KDC and Blue Planet were to initially develop 100 of these in the US by 2025, it alone could equate to enough emission reductions of nearly 5% – 10% of the entire U.S.’s Paris Treaty obligations.” -Brent Constantz, CEO of Blue Planet
  • In January 2019, the “Local Governments for Climate Restoration Campaign” was launched by Dave Cortese, County Executive, Santa Clara County, CA, Office of the Special Secretary for Climate Change Presidency of Kenya, Earth Day Network, and Foundation for Climate Restoration to call on all cities and counties to adopt a Climate Restoration Resolution.  “To survive as a civilization, we need to restore the climate now. The global response to this climate humanitarian crisis will occur one individual at a time; one town at a time; one city at a time, one county or province at a time, until we have knit together a global climate restoration movement that is unstoppable” – Dave Cortese, County Executive, Santa Clara County, California, USA
  • At Davos, Ice911 Research announced that they will deploy testing of its climate restoration material on sea ice.
  • At Davos, Cambridge Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge (CCRC) and the Foundation for Climate Restoration, announced a new partnership to expand research on the deployment of climate restoration solutions in oceans and the Arctic. “Working in partnership with the Foundation for Climate Restoration provides the needed research and solution testing structure in order for us to make effective evidence-based decisions and actions to tackle the climate emergency that threatens life on Earth as we know it.” -Sir David King, Founder and Honorary Executive Chair, CCRC, Fellow, Downing College, Cambridge and Former Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government