According to a recent analysis, in none of the industrially strong G7 countries is the economy doing enough to achieve the Paris climate agreement. With the current measures and the current goals of the companies, the earth would warm up by around 2.7 degrees compared to the pre-industrial age, as a systematic evaluation by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) organization based in London shows.
According to climate researchers, this would have catastrophic consequences and would make parts of the earth uninhabitable. In the Paris Agreement, the world community agreed to stop global warming at 1.5 degrees. In addition to the economy, transport and the building sector also play an important role.
Germany on 2.2 degree path
Along with Italy and the Netherlands, Germany is still one of the countries that do best in the ranking: According to the CDP, the companies there are on a 2.2-degree path. Canada's economy, on the other hand, is on the way to 3.1 degrees and is the worst performer. According to the CDP experts, this is because science-based corporate targets that have been proven to lead to significant emissions savings are not yet very widespread in Canada or the USA. The G7 countries also include France and Great Britain, whose industry is in the middle in the evaluation.
For the evaluation, the Carbon Disclosure Project converts the actual and planned emissions of the companies using scientific methods and appropriate weighting to the temperature paths. The researchers point out that there is a clear gap between the climate targets set by the G7 nations and the actual transformation of the economy.
Climate targets are an important driving force
According to the CDP study, the commitment to scientifically based climate targets has an effect in Europe. The economy there is now on a 2.4-degree path. While this is still far from compatible with the Paris climate targets, it is closer than it was in 2020, when European companies were still on a 2.7-degree path. In the past year, the proportion of companies with science-based climate targets has increased significantly.
Setting such goals is the most important driver for reducing harmful emissions quickly enough in line with the Paris climate agreement, says Laurent Babikian, who is responsible for capital markets at the Carbon Disclosure Project. "It is not acceptable for any country - especially not for the highly developed industrial nations - that the economy shows so few ambitions." In view of the forthcoming world climate conference in Egypt in November, governments, investors and the public should demand that companies set corresponding targets.
