Powerful investor group finds net zero pledges distant and hollow https://t.co/XGp4oOBYEr
— Financial Times (@FT) March 22, 2021
The deluge of corporate climate pledges are yet to translate to meaningful action, as only a handful of the 159 companies responsible for more than 80 per cent of global industrial emissions have set adequate targets, the influential Climate Action 100+ investor group has reported.
The investor group, which is the largest alliance with 575 institutions that collectively manage $54tn in assets, found in its latest benchmark analysis that almost all of the pledges are both distant and hollow.
Less than 1 per cent of the companies analysed had set a short-term greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 2025, at the latest, that covered the bulk of their emissions — though more than half had promised to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Only six companies had committed to aligning their future capital spending with long-term emissions reduction targets.
Only five had committed to aligning all their own political lobbying with the Paris climate agreement that seeks to limit global warming to 1.5C with a red line at 2C.
Companies that were serious about greening their operations must outline “short and medium term targets, and clear decarbonisation strategies and related capital expenditures,” said Mindy Lubber, chief executive of Ceres, a US investor group that is a CA100+ steering committee member.
Is the parent company of Aggregate Industries – cement giant LafargeHolcim, which dumped 146 million tonnes of CO2 into our atmosphere in 2020 – serious about greening their operations? Not according to the Climate Action 100+ analysis:
JUST RELEASED: #ClimateAction100+ issues its first-ever net zero company benchmark of the world’s largest corporate #GHG emittershttps://t.co/5IT5ESY9kl pic.twitter.com/EREyra81dB
— Climate Action 100+ (@ActOnClimate100) March 22, 2021
