“Paris promised; Glasgow must deliver.”

In his opening remarks at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Alok Sharma, President of COP26, summed up the moment we find ourselves in now: Time is running out, and we need to shift from rhetoric to action. 

Our founder and Chairman Sir Michael Barber echoed the sentiment. “We need to be clear that a successful conference alone changes nothing. Yes, targets might have been set and money raised, but to ensure those targets are delivered by every country and by every sector of the economy is a vast challenge. In fact, it is the biggest delivery challenge humanity has ever faced.”

It would be easy to buckle under the weight of such a challenge. All of us – from Heads of State to city Mayors to community organizers to everyday people – are allowed to have moments of despair. We are allowed to mourn the damage that’s already been done; to wonder how we’ll ever possibly find a solution; to throw up our hands and say it’s too late. But we mustn’t wallow – we need to act.

Every great thing humanity has ever accomplished relied on the same basic ingredients: Ambition. Ingenuity. Courage. Discipline. Coordination. Persistence. And relentless determination. These same traits will serve us as we take on climate change.

Aviators have long known the value of a checklist. Checklists can keep a person’s head on straight at 30,000 feet and the speed of sound; they can work here, too. At DA, our checklist is our Five Questions:

1. What are you trying to do?
2. How do you plan to do it?
3. How, at any given moment, will you know you are on track?
4. If you are not on track, what are you going to do about it?
5. Do you need help? If so, where will you get it?

Our view is that any country, state, or city in the world could apply these five questions to their climate planning. This would yield a pragmatic, real-world plan for reaching their targets.

Question 1: What are you trying to do?

Coming out of COP26, nearly every participating country and economic sector has a Net Zero target – and that represents great progress. The ambition is welcome. It is no small thing to translate massive global goals into specific targets, deadlines and trajectories at the local level. It’s a milestone worth commending, but it is only that – a milestone.

Question 2: How do you plan to do it?

Detailed, specific delivery plans for meeting Net Zero targets will look different from country to country – even city to city. An oil-rich country, a Pacific island state, a modern industrial nation and a predominantly agricultural society all face different challenges – and bring different strengths. Climate change is a global issue with a range of solutions tailored to specific local and regional circumstances.  

To their credit, President-Delegate Sharma, along with Germany’s State Secretary at the Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Jochen Flasbarth and Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Jonathan Wilkinson, prepared a strong delivery plan for reaching the $100 billion funding commitment. The next stage of planning involves thinking practically about how that funding can support a diverse range of countries to achieve their NetZero ambitions.

Question 3: How, at any given moment, will you know you are on track?

Thoughtful, well-designed, well-executed data monitoring systems will be essential to this work. When it is deployed well, data is a powerful countervailing force to the biases and assumptions that keep us mired in the status quo. It illuminates and inspires – a call to action when we are not on track and a cause for celebration when we are. But in order to work as it should, data must be grounded in complex, messy reality; collected regularly and reliably; and, most importantly, used by leadership to actively inform prioritization, course-correction, and transparency.

Question 4: If you are not on track, what are you going to do about it?

Make no mistake: Progress towards Net Zero goals will be a slog. There will be missteps. There will be bottlenecks. There will be laggards, too. But if we approach climate work methodically and diligently, there will also be progress. The key is to communicate all of it with transparency and clarity.

Where we will fall down is if governments fail to report on the things that haven’t worked. Not only will we miss the opportunity to learn from each other (fail fast, iterate quickly), but we’ll also perpetuate a vicious cycle where people mistrust their government and become cynical  and disengaged.

Effective governments are powered by the trust they earn. People who trust their government are actually more capable of holding them accountable in constructive and meaningful ways. As we pursue climate goals, politicians need to be ready to engage in open dialogue about what is and isn’t working – for all our sakes.

And at global level, we need to enable countries facing similar problems to learn rapidly and effectively from each other. Good comparative data will make this possible.

Question 5: Do you need help? If so, where will you get it?

When countries are struggling, condemnation won’t help. They need to know where to turn for help. Global agencies can assist by gathering stories of success in overcoming challenges and removing barriers. They can also build lists of organizations with the necessary expertise and track record to assist in specified circumstances.

The road ahead is long. The work is hard. The urge to give up is strong and we feel it sometimes, too, because we are only human. But we are also buoyed by our humanity – by the knowledge that we have what it takes, collectively, to rise to the challenge ahead. We are creative, capable, and collaborative. We need the imagination to visualise success and the grit to get it done.

Time to get started.