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FILE PHOTO: French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius, President-designate of COP21, and Christiana Figueres react at the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) at Le Bourget
FILE PHOTO: French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius (R), President-designate of COP21 and Christiana Figueres (L), Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, react during the final plenary session at the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) at Le Bourget, near Paris, France, December 12, 2015. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo Image: Reuters/Stephane Mahe
environment

Mission 2025 group urges governments to set more ambitious climate goals

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By Simon Jessop and Alison Withers

Some of the world's biggest companies, finance houses, cities and regions have joined forces to urge governments to increase their climate ambition ahead of a February 2025 deadline to deliver their emission-cutting plans to the United Nations.

The group has signed up to a coalition named Mission 2025. It is convened by Groundswell - a collaboration between non-profits Global Optimism, Systems Change Lab, and the Bezos Earth Fund.

Corporate backers include consumer goods company Unilever, the world's biggest furniture retailer IKEA and British sustainable energy company Octopus EV. Others are represented through groups such as the We Mean Business Coalition.

While some fossil fuel companies have drawn criticism from environmental campaigners, others in business are frustrated by what they see as short-sighted governments reluctant to regulate to bring about necessary change when the evidence climate change is becoming more extreme is mounting.

Mission 2025 aims to reassure political leaders they have powerful support for bold action.

It is spearheaded by Global Optimism's Christiana Figueres, who oversaw the Paris Agreement in 2015 that produced the first truly global agreement that countries would cut climate-damaging emissions.

Ten years on from the Paris deal, the nearly 200 countries who agreed to it have a deadline to put forward updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that lay out a country's policies towards meeting the global goal of reducing emissions.

More than two-thirds of annual revenues across the world's biggest companies, totaling $31 trillion, was now aligned with the quest to reach net-zero emissions, the coalition said in a statement, citing data from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, an independent climate think tank.

A U.N.-backed survey this month of the public's views on climate change across 77 countries, meanwhile, showed 80% of respondents want their governments to take stronger action even though some governments, concerned about re-election and economics, have retreated from previous pledges.

Figueres told Reuters a "lack of leadership" and political noise were to blame for insufficient policy to drive the cleaner technologies that have shown themselves to be cheaper, better-performing, faster to construct and a safer investment than their incumbent rivals.

"The political economy is very clear that the future is one of decarbonization," she said.

More clarity from governments over the direction of public policy was needed to give confidence to companies and others in the real economy to invest more in the transition to a low-carbon economy over the period to 2035.

"We think that governments are still very timid about what they're going to be including in their NDCs," she said, citing opposition from companies and others tied to the fossil fuel economy, which she said smacked of desperation.

U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell told delegates at a climate conference in Bonn this month that the NDCs needed to cover "every sector and all greenhouse gases".

To help empower governments to go further, the Mission 2025 coalition would provide the data needed to justify the policy changes, with a focus on the 20 largest economies, responsible for the bulk of emissions, Figueres said.

"Those will be the ones that we will be focusing more on. Not only because they have the capacity to shift more, but also because they have the means to do it."

© Thomson Reuters 2024.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

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quote: More than two-thirds of annual revenues across the world's biggest companies, totaling $31 trillion, was now aligned with the quest to reach net-zero emissions.

Lovely. So hand that cash over to governments so it can pay for the green transition. Because if voters have to pay for it out of their own pockets, regimes will be unelected faster than you can say 'goodbye Rishi'. They will simply elect populists who will do even less than governments are doing now.

That means subsidising smaller EVs so they cost the same as a second hand runabout - about £1000. Made locally or in China. And ensuring there is a viable network of petrol-cost or less charging infrastructure, for those who can charge at home and those who cannot, with cross-border compatibility and extreme-weather capable batteries. It means paying for the urban lagoons, sewer systems and extra reservoirs to manage water better. It means ensuring that there is enough green power without blackouts. And that's just for starters.

That 'political noise' is the sound of democracy - people will not vote themselves into poverty, unemployment and homeprisonment whilst other nations crack on with ignoring all this, getting richer and enjoying themselves.

So come on then, coalition of rich folks. Start writing those cheques.

quote: every sector.

Including the physical conference sector? Because there have been an awful lot of climate change conferences over the last decade. Have those folks in Bonn heard of this thing called Zoom?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

We must act quickly to salvage our wonderful planet. If we fail to do this, the end will be excruciating.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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