Climate Action

In September 2015, 193 world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development. If these Goals are completed, it would mean an end to extreme poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030.
Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

[New] The investment industry is alert to the growing threat of climate change, with global industry leaders coming together last year through the emergence of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative and the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance, both of which commit to net-zero by 2050.
[New] Nearly half of the Climate Action 100+ focus companies have now established commitments to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.
[New] China's commitments to scale up its Paris Agreement pledges and aim to become carbon neutral by 2060 put pressure on the United States to restore its own climate leadership.
[New] Achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 means that China will have 30 years for continuous and rapid emissions cuts, after it reaches the emissions peak by around 2030.
[New] China's commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 comes at a critical moment when the world is in much need of more ambitious climate goals.
[New] If China achieves its aim of reaching carbon neutrality before 2060 then it would lower global warming projections by around 0.2 to 0.3 C.
[New] With China recently committing to carbon neutrality by 2060 and Joe Biden promising to return the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change, the decarbonization push is becoming both global and synchronized.
[New] In light of the EU's tightened 2030 climate target and in order to safely achieve climate neutrality in 2050, the Federal Republic of Germany cannot avoid raising its national 2030 climate target as well.
[New] Climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year between 2030-2050, at a cost of two to four billion dollars a year.
[New] Early in 2022, regulators in the EU and the UK will start pushing listed companies to adopt the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures for talking about their emissions and climate risks.
[New] To make matters worse, Australia is one of the global leaders that has not committed to a clear climate change policy; the U.K., U.S., Japan and China have all committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
[New] Others, such as China, have recovery plans to which coal is central, and have declined to join the commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
[New] The rise in emissions likely to occur as Australia's economy returns to a pre-pandemic state over 2021 will occur just before the 2021 Conference of Parties meeting, in which climate will become a key global focus.
[New] With the arrival of effective vaccines likely to bring the catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic under control in much of the world by summer 2021, the fight against climate change will once again be humanity's great existential challenge.
[New] $158 trillion of physical assets - double the total annual output of the global economy - are at risk without preventative action to mitigate climate change.
MDBs have pledged a rise in climate finance to US$ 65 billion by 2025, up 50% from the 2018 level, and to double adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025.
The CFS will cut annual emissions by more than 20 megatons by 2030, which would be around 10% of the reductions needed to meet Canada's climate commitments.
Man-made carbon dioxide emissions need to fall by about 45% by 2030, from 2010 levels, and reach net zero by mid-century to give the world a good chance of limiting warming to 1.5 C and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.
State law requires Colorado utilities to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030, and 26% below 2005 levels in the next five years.
The most severe social and economic crisis in nearly a century could then serve, paradoxically, as a turning point in global efforts to combat climate change, leading to action on an unprecedented scale, accelerating the transformational change that the world desperately needs.
In the context of the UK Government's target to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement more generally, many companies are likely to need to consider significant changes to their business.
By 2050-the year when a growing list of nations aim to have zeroed out their contributions to climate change - the UN projects the global population will be 9.7 billion, on its way to topping out at 11 billion in 2100.

Last updated: 10 January 2021

Climate Action

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