Four in five of world's biggest firms 'unlikely' to comply with climate targets
More than four in five of the world’s largest companies are not on track to meet the Paris climate targets for 2050, a study from the Arabesque S-Ray sustainability measurement tool revealed on Tuesday.
The study collected data from almost 3,000 publicly listed companies, and found that just 18% had disclosed plans that were aligned with goals to limit rising temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Its analysts found more than a third of the world’s top 200 companies still did not disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.
"[Companies] may appear to be taking steps to reduce their impact on climate change," said Arabesque founding partner Andreas Feiner, but he added that many were choosing to keep the full scale of their emissions private so as not to scare off investors.
Nonetheless, around half of 2,900 companies included in the study had a near-term score that aligned with the Paris agreement's climate target, but they still needed to up their efforts in the longer term.
The scores in the Arabesque database for the different firms compared a company’s current emissions to the projected emissions for three scenarios of global temperature rise - 1.5 degrees Celsius, two degrees and 2.7 degrees.
They also also incorporated a company’s plans to reduce emissions, both directly and indirectly.