Tatsat Chronicle Magazine

Only 20% Cos Disclose Carbon Emissions Reduction Targets: WEF Study

Across the G20, 4,215 companies disclosed climate targets to CDP's database, but only 20 per cent of these targets were based on science and in line with the Paris Agreement
January 19, 2022
carbon emissions

The World Economic Forum said in a new report on Monday that progress is being made on climate action in both the public and private sectors, but more needs to be done to meet the net-zero challenge.

As part of its online week-long Davos Agenda summit, the WEF said that 92 countries accounting for 78% of global emissions have made net-zero commitments to reduce emissions at the national level, up from 29 countries making similar pledges till 2019 and representing less than 10% of global emissions. India is among these 92 countries.

Corporate action has intensified in the past year, but more needs to be done since only 20% of companies disclose their full value chain emissions and have targets in place to reduce emissions. WEF reports that only 9% of companies actually reduced their emissions last year in line with the 1.5°C Paris Agreement goal.

In September, a research by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the global body enabling businesses to set emissions reduction targets in line with science, found that across the G20, 4,215 companies disclosed climate targets to the Climate Disclosure Project (CDP)’s database, but just 20 per cent of these are science-based targets in line with Paris Agreement goals. The SBTi study suggested that climate leaders have the potential to attract and retain better talent, realise higher growth, save costs, avoid regulatory risk, access cheaper capital, and find new ways to create value for their customers based on the insights they gained from their interviews and corporate data analysis.

Nearly half of job seekers prioritise sustainability; green alternatives to traditional products are rapidly gaining traction; and on average, companies can reduce their emissions by nearly 50% without incurring significant costs across key sectors.

The majority of companies can reduce their emissions by 30% without incurring any costs to their business, and some companies are able to achieve almost full decarbonisation without incurring any costs.

“Initiative by the private area is basic to speeding up environment activity couple with intense advances taken by government pioneers,” said Antonia Gawel, Head of the Climate Action Platform, World Economic Forum.

The report carefully describes the situation and gives contextual investigations about new obligation financing, lessening hazard openness and new plans of action becoming conventional. It likewise features how much full decarbonisation will affect the end cost of items for buyers. Costs for food and design items will see less than 1 euro rise to their shopping bins. The normal expense of a cell phone would rise by less than 3 euros.