UN
Climate Change
Global
Climate Action
29
September
2020 | |
Double
The Net Zero
Commitments | |
The
number of commitments to reach net zero
emissions has doubled in less than a year, with
many in the Race to Zero by 2050. According to a
report
by the Data-Driven EnviroLab
and the
NewClimate Institute,
published during Climate
Week NYC
last week, that includes cities and regions
covering more than the combined GDP of Japan,
India and the UK, and companies with a combined
revenue of over $11.4 trillion (equivalent to
more than half of the US GDP). This shows that
climate action has continued unimpeded by
Covid-19.
Key
findings include:
- Europe
is the region with the biggest number of city
and regional net zero pledges, followed by Latin
America in second and East Asia and the Pacific
third.
- In
Australia, the commitments by states and
territories cover more than 95 percent of the
country’s population.
- Companies
in consumer-centric sectors are leading the way
among business, followed by industrials. Real
estate companies, however, still have room to
accelerate.
Now
we implement.
Commitments
are the necessary and crucial first step. But
the challenge is to follow through by making the
changes needed to get there. So far, 43 percent
of the local governments committed to net zero
have released action plans, and a quarter have
incorporated the targets into policies and
legislation.
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Largest
Economies
Transform | |
China
steps up.
If
China achieves its new goal for climate
neutrality before 2060, it will lower global
warming projections by up to 0.3°C, to 2.5°C,
according to analysis by Climate
Action Tracker.
It would also “make China richer,” as the huge
investments required would raise China’s GDP by
as much as 5 percent later this decade and drive
lower costs for clean energy around the world,
Carbon
Brief reported.
It is technically possible for China to become a
fully developed, rich zero-carbon economy by
2050, the Energy Transition Commission and Rocky
Mountain Institute found in a report
last year. The transition would cost less than 1
percent of GDP and add only a minor cost to
consumer prices.
Some
companies are already forging ahead: China’s
renewable energy companies LONGi Solar, Envision
Energy and Sungrow this month launched the
RE100
China Pathfinder Pledge,
which appeals for more Chinese companies to join
them in the global RE100
initiative
and switch to 100 percent renewable power.
America
delivers.
Bottom-up
leadership from US states and cities and a
pivotal shift in market forces have helped push
the country to an irreversible tipping point in
the clean energy transition, according to the
new America’s Pledge report.
One
in three Americans now live in a jurisdiction
committed to reaching 100 percent clean
electricity, up from just 33 cities and Hawaii
three years ago. Meanwhile, the country’s
electric vehicles market has doubled — and will
likely receive a boost from California Governor
Gavin Newsom’s decision
last week to
ban sales of gasoline-fuelled vehicles by 2035.
In further signs of transformation, the US
Beyond Coal campaign has retired 60 percent of
coal-fired power plants in the country, double
the original goal set in 2011, Bloomberg
Philanthropies and Sierra Club announced.
| |
Some
of the most far-reaching shifts towards zero
carbon have come from the finance sector this
year. Ahead
of the pack is the UN Net
Zero Asset Owner Alliance,
which celebrated its one-year anniversary last
week. In that time, the alliance has grown to 29
institutional investors with nearly $5 trillion
in assets under management (from 12 investors
and $2.4 trillion under management) — all
working to fully decarbonize their portfolios by
2050.
In
response to this year’s economic collapse, the
Asset Owner Alliance urged
governments
to ensure that their recovery packages help
reduce emissions in line with a 1.5°C warming
limit. Green stimulus is likely to be a bigger
jobs multiplier than conventional spending, the
alliance argued, with a shift from brown to
green spending expected to add five jobs per
million dollars of spending. Elsewhere in the
sector…
Climate
Action 100+,
the world’s largest investor-corporate
engagement initiative — including three-quarters
of the Asset Owner Alliance, in September
called
on the CEOs and chairs
of 161 of the largest greenhouse gas-emitting
companies to set net zero targets and plans. It
also informed CEOs that their companies will be
publicly assessed on progress towards net zero
emissions from 2021. Fifty of those companies
have said they will aim to reach net zero
emissions by 2050.
The
Institutional
Investors Group on Climate Change
started building
a framework
to guide asset owners and managers on maximizing
their work towards net zero emissions by 2050,
including how they engage with businesses and
policymakers and shift their
investments.
| |
Science
Based Targets Initiative:
It will release its own framework for financial
institutions
to adopt science-based targets for emissions
reductions during an event
on October 1, at 9-10am ET/ 2-3pm BST.
Daring
Cities: ICLEI’s
global
forum
for urban leaders taking on the climate crisis
runs from October 7 to 28.
TED
Countdown: The
global initiative to champion and accelerate
climate solutions kicks off on October 10, with
this
impressive line-up of speakers throughout the
day.
Climate
Hub 360: UN
Climate Change has launched a visual
events platform
to track key events between now and COP26 in
November 2021.
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Small
businesses join the race too: Small
and medium enterprises, responsible for 90
percent of business and 2 billion employees, can
now join the Race to Zero through the SME
Climate Hub,
launched by the International Chamber of
Commerce, the Exponential Roadmap Initiative and
We Mean Business.
New
members
include Colombian pharmaceuticals company
Corporacion Punto Azul from Colombia,
Argentinian manufacturer Dandy Buenos Aires,
Mexican manufacturer Orestia, India’s EKI Energy
Services and Ghanaian wholesale and retail
trader Seebel Limited.
Net
zero is ‘technically and economically possible’:
And
it will be led by electrification, complemented
by hydrogen, sustainable biomass and fossil
fuels, combined with carbon capture, the Energy
Transitions Commission found in its Making
Mission Possible
report. Coal and oil demand would each fall by
just over 90 percent in the next 30 years, it
found.
How
to protect nature, in line with science:
The
loss of nature directly threatens economic
activities that currently help generate over
half the global GDP. This guidance, by the
Science
Based Targets Network,
sets out what companies can do to help protect
and preserve nature, and avert those risks.
Chile’s
largest water utility aims for 2030:
Aguas
Andinas became
the first and only water utility
in the world to commit to reduce its emissions
in line with a 1.5°C limit by 2030, working with
the Science Based Targets Initiative. In doing
so, the company will prevent people in Santiago
de Chile from emitting more than 76,000 tons of
CO per year, and reduce total emissions equal to
12.7 million car trips per year.
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