Business Climate Initiatives Advance but Underperform

In the end, hope did not triumph over expectation at COP30. The actions of petrostates and the fossil fuel industry at the UN climate change conference scored over the interests of vulnerable populations. At the same time, the positive actions of scores of governments and hundreds of big businesses and small companies give the hope that the one-way climate journey is continuing in the right direction. Of course, the pace is a matter of high concern.

COP30 witnessed a number of commitments by business coalitions, associations and companies to support decarbonisation and announce measures to that effect and also support small businesses. The latter is very important because upstream supply chain emissions can contribute up to 70% of a company’s emissions. In fact, the share of eight global supply chains is more than 50% of global emissions, according to WEF.

Business climate measures range from promotion of clean energy infrastructure and utilities to emission cuts and energy efficiency to decarbonisation in supply-chains.

A global coalition of public utilities accelerating clean-energy transition, the Utilities for Net Zero Alliance (UNEZA) committed $148 billion annually, mostly on grids, up from $117 billion, including for renewable energy ($66 billion) and transmission and storage ($82 billion). The commitments are projected to lead to energy transition investments of $1 trillion by 2030.  UNEZA members include Adani Energy Solutions, Adani Renewables and BSES.

ResponsibleSteel’s agreements with Europe’s Low Emission Steel Standard (LESS) and China’s Low-carbon Emission Steel Standard (C2F Steel), with more than half of the world’s steel production under their fold, are expected to promote low-carbon trade in an industry accounting for up to 9% of global emissions.

The agreements providing for standardising GHG measurement and classification are also expected to lead to more investments, green procurement and technology collaboration for sustainable steelmaking. ResponsibleSteel’s members include JSW Steel, JSL Jindal Steel & Power and Tata Steel.

Under the banner of Alliance to Save Energy and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE, a coalition of 180 large and small businesses and trade associations cutting across sectors in the US pledged to work with governments to realise the global goal of doubling energy-efficiency rate by 2030. This assumes significance as the International Energy Agency forecasts that doubling the energy-efficiency rate will cut energy bills in rich countries by one third, add 4.5 million new jobs and achieve 40% of the emission cuts as needed under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The pledge by US companies is all the more important because the Trump administration did not send any high level official delegation to UN climate conference in Belem.

In another instance, a letter moved by business climate action non-profit We Mean Business Coalition and signed by more than 130 organisations called upon governments to transition away from fossil fuels. The letter was signed by representatives of more than 100,000 companies and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) of more than 400 members managing assets of about $50 trillion.

Small businesses were not far behind. The South-South Collective for Climate (S2C2), a global non-profit set up by the Climate Collective Foundation (CCF),  aims to enable more than 5,000+ climate start-ups in Africa, Latin America and South Asia to reduce or avoid 1 Gt of emissions. The first step is to raise $220 million through market access accelerators to support more than 600 start-ups by 2027.

Under the Climate-Proofing SMEs Campaign, about 250 companies, including IKEA, Schneider Electric, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Natura and Tech Mahindra, are working with millions of SMEs to slash emissions through initiatives like mentorship programmes, carbon footprint assessments, capacity building and provisions of technical assistance and financial incentives.

Such examples are by no means a comprehensive listing of climate commitments and actions by businesses. Even a complete listing of business’ climate actions is likely to fall short when one considers that just 39 fossil fuel companies, including Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, Shell and Coal India, contribute half of global emissions, as per a report by InfluenceMap, a think tank.

The 1.5°C threshold over pre-industrial times was breached in 2024. And if the world acts and acts fast enough before the multi-decade average mentioned in the 2015 Paris Agreement is crossed, it would be a triumph of hope over expectation.

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