The Climate Crisis
Equipping leaders with the data and market insights needed for climate action.
Market-driven. Science-led.
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Total global greenhouse gas emissions reached a record 60 gigatons (CO2e) in 2025—a 2.4% increase over the previous year. This trajectory represents more than just an environmental challenge; it is a fundamental breach of global market stability.
Systemic climate impacts—including disrupted supply chains, compromised water security, and mounting economic liabilities—are manifesting in real-time. In 2024, global temperatures exceeded the pre-industrial average by 1.5°C, marking a critical threshold in atmospheric volatility. With the ten warmest years on record all occurring within the last decade, the trend of accelerating warming is undeniable.
This data confirms that the era of theoretical risk has ended. To preserve long-term economic value and institutional resilience, we must deploy aggressive, market-driven strategies to mitigate the primary drivers of this volatility: carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane.
While Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the primary driver of long-term warming, Nitrous Oxide (N2O) and Methane (CH4) represent acute, high-potency liabilities that accelerate near-term tipping points. Achieving absolute emissions reduction across all three is the only path to market stabilization.
Fossil CO2 emissions reached 36.3 Gt in 2024, with 2025 projected to set a new record of 38.1 Gt. With more than 90% of emissions generated from burning fossil fuels, atmospheric CO2 has reached a record 422.7 ppm. The 2024 jump of 3.75 ppm was the largest one-year increase on record, intensifying the "cost of carry" for an atmosphere where CO2 persists for over 300 years.
Human-made N2O emissions increased by 40% between 1980 and 2020. N2O is 265 times more potent than CO2 and represents a high-intensity liability that persists in the atmosphere for at least 127 years, making sustainable agricultural innovation a mathematical necessity for climate stabilization.
Levels reached 339 ppb in 2025, exceeding pre-industrial benchmarks by over 25%. Methane is over 80 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year horizon. In the energy sector, CH4 leaks represent lost revenue and a high-velocity driver of short-term warming; rapid abatement is the single most effective way to slow near-term feedback loops.
We are approaching—and in some cases, crossing—critical planetary tipping points. For the global economy, these are no longer future projections; they are unhedged liabilities manifesting in real-time across every asset class. To read the Global Tipping Points Report 2025, please link to it here.
The U.S. has sustained 403 climate events exceeding $1B in damages since 1980, totaling over $2.9 trillion in losses. This represents a fundamental repricing of risk that will dramatically increase the cost of insurance and lower the terminal value of real estate and infrastructure.
Accelerating ice sheet collapse is a threat to municipal solvency. Saltwater intrusion and frequent flooding erode the physical integrity of supply chains and threaten the credit ratings of coastal economic hubs.
Acidic waters impair the calcium carbonate formation essential to the $3 trillion Blue Economy. Coral reefs—supporting 25% of all marine life—are passing thermal tipping points, creating non-linear risk to global food security.
The slowing of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation represents a systemic threat to global trade. A collapse would trigger precipitous temperature drops in Europe and alter monsoon systems that underpin drinking water for billions.
The Amazon is shifting from an asset to a liability, threatening 120 billion tons of sequestered carbon. The loss of this "sink" risks making private sector ESG targets mathematically impossible to achieve.
Climate change acts as a systemic drain on labor productivity and healthcare expenditures. Rising temperatures and vector-borne diseases fundamentally threaten workforce resilience and global food security.
While nearly half of the world's 193 recognized countries operate under democratic frameworks, the operational reality is often dictated by concentrated power. We must distinguish between those who hold office and those who hold the levers of economic power.
Corporations in energy-intensive sectors like AI, manufacturing, chemicals, and construction wield immense influence to protect fossil-based energy inputs, effectively anchoring the global economy to legacy carbon assets.
Market signals are distorted by record fossil fuel revenues. The industry generated $4 trillion in profit in 2022—an equivalent of $52 billion in profit for every week the global energy transition is delayed.
Strategic misinformation remains a primary tool for market preservation. Decades of industry-funded campaigns have successfully obscured true liability profiles, delaying the accurate pricing of climate risk in public markets.
In the 2024 cycle alone, the industry deployed $445 million in political spending to secure a regulatory environment that minimizes accountability for climate-related damages.
The industry receives up to $35 billion annually in U.S. subsidies. These taxpayer-funded incentives exclude massive environmental externalities, preventing a true equilibrium where cleaner alternatives can compete on a level playing field.
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