G7 Summit: Business leaders call for climate action
By Era Environnement
In the lead-up to the G7 Summit in Biarritz, France, and two days before President Macron meets civil society in Paris, business leaders representing companies based in G7 countries explained on a media briefing call on Aug. 21 why they are calling on G7 leaders to make addressing climate change with speed and scale a critical G7 agenda item and to commit to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Participating companies have committed to ambitious climate action and call on their national governments to do the same. Companies spoke to their efforts to align with the latest science on limiting global warming to 1.5°C degrees.
Indeed, at the end of july, twenty-eight companies with a total market capitalization of $1.3 trillion have set up a new level of climate ambition in response to a call-to-action campaign ahead of the UN Climate Action Summit on 23 September.
The companies such as Unilever, Vodafone Group PLC and Zurich Insurance, amongst others have committed themselves to more ambitious climate targets aligned with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and reaching net-zero emissions by no later than 2050.
The commitments of the 28 companies heed the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warned of catastrophic consequences should global warming exceed 1.5°C.
“The UN Secretary-General has called on leaders to come to the Climate Action Summit in September with clear plans for major cuts to emissions on the pathway to a zero-net emissions economy by 2050,” said Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Climate Action Summit.
