Climate

In the last 10,000 years, the Earth’s climate has remained remarkably stable. But in just the past 100 years, human carbon emissions have raised the average global temperature by 1°C.

In previous epochs, it took volcanic activity tens of thousands of years to make that kind of warming impact.

At our current carbon emissions rate, we’re on pace to hit a further 2°C increase in the next 100 years. We are approaching a “carbon threshold” – a build up of a critical mass of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which triggers a chain reaction and a vicious cycle, leading to massive climate shift.

To change course, systematic changes that will result in emission reductions are vital, but at our current pace even the best case scenario of emissions reductions will not be enough.

Removal of previous emissions is also necessary.

Figure S.1 from Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration (2019)

Unfortunately, carbon capture and removal technologies are still significantly underfunded. As a result, there are too few carbon removal products and technologies available to businesses that want to have a positive impact on the climate.

This makes carbon removal a much harder sector to support than it should be. Right now, barriers to entry are simply too high for too many businesses.

But this is a time-sensitive matter. The longer it takes for carbon removal technologies to reach their full potential, the more carbon we will have to remove from the atmosphere every year if we’re to reach our net zero targets by 2050.

Over the long term, a dollar spent toward carbon removal today will have a greater impact than the same dollar spent on carbon offsets. We’re excited to support projects with the potential to become much less expensive over the coming years, and proud to support a climate initiative that makes it easy for any organization, regardless of size, to help fund these vital methods.

That’s why we’ve partnered with Stripe to help fund the development of the most promising permanent carbon removal technologies that have the potential to scale.

It’s hard for any one business to take on that initial cost alone. Just like other problems of massive impact where there is no immediate financial incentive to act, overcoming this hurdle requires collective action that is philanthropic in nature, which is exactly what Flipcause stands for at our core.

We’re committing a portion of our profits toward Stripe’s growing portfolio of researched and vetted technologies.

We consider this part of our greater responsibility to our community.

As a grassroots organization, we are limited in resources to allow the kind of time and financing required to spearhead an effort of this scale. We’re wholly excited that Stripe is tackling this issue, making it easy for even a modest company like ours to be able to take part and have an impact.