The ozone layer is a gas in the upper atmosphere that protects life on Earth from the sun’s most harmful rays.
More than 100 nations came together in 1987 to sign the Montreal Protocol, aiming to eliminate ozone-depleting substances. According to scientists, the ozone layer hole is continuing to shrink and could be fully repaired by 2066.
As of 2021, a paper showed that the treaty has likely spared 443 million Americans from skin cancer, prevented 2.3 million skin cancer deaths, and 63 million cataract cases.
Environmental movements work!
Can that success be duplicated?
COP thinks we can do so.
COP30 stands for the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It’s the annual global summit where world leaders, scientists, and other stakeholders gather to discuss and negotiate actions to address climate change. COP30 will be held in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025.
COP30’s main themes include: reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation to climate change. Climate finance for developing countries.
COP30 will be attended by leaders, ministers, diplomats, UN representatives, scientists, business leaders, non-governmental organizations, activists, and other members of civil society from more than 190 countries.
The Principles For Responsible Investment (PRI) organization works to understand the investment implications of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, and support its international network of investor signatories to incorporate these factors into their investment and ownership decisions.
It is driven by the belief that an economically efficient, sustainable global financial system is a necessity for long-term value creation. It was launched in 2005 at the behest of then-Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, by an investor group of 70 experts from a dozen countries. It has since grown steadily to include more than 500 banks and insurers with assets exceeding US$170 trillion.
It has more than 3,000 signatories (asset owners and investment managers) who are pledged to achieve responsible investment issues such as climate-related risks, governance, human rights, and social issues.
PRI CEO David Atkin stated that “Our data shows that the perception of an industry-wide shift away from responsible investment practices is overstated. The global sector fundamentally understands that core responsible investment principles help them make smart investment decisions and are good for their businesses. What we are seeing is that signatories are going back to basics, assessing their work and evolving it in line with the world around them.”
The signatories are including material issues – such as climate change and human rights – into the way they pick assets, build portfolios and engage with companies. Financial materiality is the key driver for this activity – with over 90% of investment managers having formalised processes to identify and incorporate material issues such as physical climate risks and human rights and social-related issues into decisions.
Those wanting to get an overview on their activities can start with their Guide To Responsible Investment. It clearly points out the threat: In 2024, average global warming reached 1.55°C above the pre-industrial average, marking the hottest year in global temperature data going back to 1850 and likely in the last 100,000 years. It was a year marked by climate extremes:
- record-breaking rainfall and flooding in the US Southeast and southern Spain
- persistent drought across much of Central and South America
- contracting sea ice in both the Antarctic and Arctic
It acknowledges that much investor action on climate-related risk has focused on climate mitigation: reducing carbon emissions with the aim of limiting the long-term rise in global temperatures. However, it knows that research shows these efforts will not be enough to limit significant physical and economic damage without adaptive interventions.
Using the Standards and Poor (S&P) global 1200 index, which captures some 70% of global market capitalization – long-term debt, stock, and retained earnings – it forecasts that the funding gap needed to address climate damage will rise each year from $885 billion in the 2030s to $1.2 trillion in the 2050s and $1.6 trillion in the 2090s.
Critical sectors include infrastructure, agriculture and water resource management.
Current financing is insufficient to address the challenges ahead and the funding gap is widening.
The good news is that from a hard-nosed financial viewpoint, the imperative of adapting to climate change is creating investment opportunities. US$1.8 trillion invested in climate adaptation measures before 2030 could generate US$7.1 trillion in net benefits.
Change will be needed at fundamental levels. Definitions of flood levels have just been changed by the American Society of Civil Engineers Flood Resistant Design and Construction (ASCE 24-24), which issued the first new standards since they were first introduced in 1998. The changes are major shifts in how we approach design and construction in flood hazard areas based on the lessons the climate has taught us over the last decade. It significantly expands the regulated flood hazard area, for example, from the 100-year floodplain to the 500-year floodplain. It also establishes new minimum flood elevation requirements for buildings in flood hazard areas.
At the same time, the global property market is witnessing the emergence of ‘climate abandonment zones’ — geographic areas where climate change is driving residents from their homes. Mortgage lenders, once focused on credit scores and income, are now scrutinising climate risk with unprecedented detail, with many institutions pulling back due to the growing threat of floods and fires.
These threats are being met by new approaches to climate emergency measures and new approaches to building, insuring, and planning for a more climate-resilient future. Properties built with protective features and dynamic warning systems make more stable investment zones, because they’re less likely to suffer significant damage from extreme weather. AI-driven data analytics and simulation tools help to design smarter, more resilient communities with full emergency preparedness.
The threat goes beyond buildings and infrastructure, of course. A Joint Statement by the G7 Farmers’ Organization warned that “the escalating effects of climate change—seen in more frequent droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events—are threatening crop yields and livestock health, while placing additional stress on rural infrastructure and farmers.”
It stressed that farmers have a larger role than food production, if that is possible, and are stewards of rural landscapes, playing a central role in preserving biodiversity, protecting soil and water resources, and ensuring the cultural and economic vitality of their territories. It recommended that ”all farmers must have access to the latest technologies, including precision agriculture, biotechnology, and AI-powered decision tools, including small-scale family farms. Innovation must become a priority for G7 countries. We call for a farmer-centered approach and increased public and private investment in agricultural research and development as well as enabling infrastructure.”
One solution that is coming increasingly to the fore is Digital twin technology. It is increasingly recognized as a valuable tool for disaster management and emergency preparedness. A digital twin creates a real-time virtual model of physical infrastructure, integrating data from sensors and simulations to support risk assessment, scenario planning, and operational decision-making. International projects, such as the EU-funded PANTHEON initiative, are developing community-based smart digital twin platforms specifically for disaster resilience and risk management. In Canada, experts highlight the potential for digital twins to help regions like those in Atlantic Canada—including storm-tossed Nova Scotia—better prepare for and respond to natural disasters, especially in the face of recent severe weather events.
A paper on disaster emergency preparedness focused on Nova Scotia, located on the eastern seaboard of Canada, which has been vulnerable to recurrent flood events and faces some of the highest sea level rise in Canada under current climate change projections. Since 1900, several flood events have occurred, resulting in significant economic losses. It is also evident that the frequency of flooding events in specific places in Nova Scotia has increased since 1999 at a very fast pace. It has also caused substantial fatalities and mass evacuations. As climate change intensifies extreme weather patterns, the urgency to adopt advanced technologies for disaster risk reduction has become increasingly evident. It highlighted the need for innovative, data-driven solutions to address flood risk in a province prone to coastal and inland flooding. Introducing Digital Twins could help with short-term disaster response and long-term flood prevention strategies.
he Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) provides an overview of disasters worldwide, recording data on 26,000 disasters from 1900 to the present. It is noted that floods are the most common natural disaster occurring:
While all natural disasters tend to be fast-acting, unexpected events – e.g. wildfires – floods are perhaps the most dangerous. Arising from sudden weather anomalies, the impact of a sudden rush of water can destroy whole communities in minutes. Unlike wildfires, they cannot be fought over a matter of days; a flood is an instantaneous disaster.
A solution has to embrace an implementation methodology and digital framework tailored to flood mitigation measures, the use of Digital Twins in disaster response, and capacity building for real-time applications during emergencies. They offer a thorough grasp of a region’s infrastructure, encompassing structures, utilities, transit systems, and environmental factors. combining information from multiple sources, including social media feeds, satellite photography, sensors, and IoT devices. DTs help emergency responders and planners better prepare for, prevent, and handle calamities.
Ultimately, they give decision-makers a comprehensive picture of the issue as it is developing by continuously updating real-time data feeds, empowering them to make wise decisions in quickly changing situations, and empowering citizens to select appropriate courses of action during a climate disaster.
Digital Twins could be the key to solving the fundamental problem of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. They connect the cause of the emission to the effect of a climate change, and visualize the outcome.
Although this is a different type of solution than the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons that ended the ozone hole problem, the dynamic is the same: eliminating greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide from fossil fuels) by creating lenses of Digital Twin analysis.
You have to see it before you can solve it.
And you have to see the connection, through digital modelling, to the harm that greenhouse gas emissions cause, in order to become motivated for change.
People are ready. Poll after poll shows that they want change to be made.
It is time to step beyond our current hesitant steps, see the future, and bring it home.
“The Ozone Layer challenge was not a one-type victory,” said Lawrence Wollersheim, Director, Job One For Humanity. “ It was a model. We can do it again.
“Because we must.”
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