U.S. companies act on climate despite Trump – Carbon reduction targets “have been short in scope and pretty unambitious, but that is improving”

24 Oct 2017 (Reuters) – U.S. companies are still among the most ambitious in setting targets to combat global warming despite President Donald Trump’s plans to quit the 195-nation Paris climate agreement, a 2017 survey showed on Tuesday.
U.S.-based firms made up a fifth of those in a 2017 “A list” of 159 companies judged to have ambitious policies on limiting climate change and protecting water resources and forests, according to London-based non-profit CDP.
This made U.S. firms the biggest single national group and was similar to levels in 2016, according to CDP, which tracks companies’ environmental performance and was formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project.
“We don’t see U.S. companies faring worse in our analysis” since Trump took office, said Marcus Norton, chief partnerships officer and general counsel at CDP.
“The business case for climate action remains despite a lack of support in the federal level,” he told Reuters. [more]

US companies act on climate despite Trump: Survey

By Fiona Harvey
25 October 2017
(The Guardian) – Nearly nine out of 10 of the world’s biggest companies have plans in place to reduce carbon emissions, new research has found, but only a fifth of them are doing so for 2030 and beyond.The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) also found that only 14% of its sample of 1,073 large companies around the world had “science-based targets” – that is, goals to reduce carbon emissions which are in line with the global agreement to hold warming to no more than 2C, enshrined in the 2015 Paris agreement.“Targets [from companies] have previously been short in scope and pretty unambitious,” Marcus Norton, chief partnerships officer at CDP, told the Guardian. “That is improving.”Companies are not bound by the Paris agreement, which requires country governments to take action to hold warming to no more than 2C, with an aspirational goal of keeping warming to even lower levels, of 1.5C. However, many large companies have taken their own steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including investing in renewable energy, cutting down on waste and streamlining their operations.Paul Simpson, chief executive of CDP, added: “This is great news for those companies seizing the opportunity of the low-carbon economy, but the rest need to pick up the pace or risk losing out. The majority of the large corporations we analysed do not yet appear to have the right science-based targets in place to successfully transition their business in line with the Paris agreement, though many have ambitions to take this step in the next two years.” [more]

Big companies’ climate change targets are ‘unambitious’, say analysts