KEEPING the promise to limit global warming to 1.5°C is at the bottom of the list for global businesses at this year’s climate summit, new research published today reveals.
The business world has a lack of confidence in the Glasgow Climate Pact pledge to “keep 1.5°C alive” from Cop26 and some markets have already priced-in exceeding the target, according to researchers from advisory firm East & Partners and consultancy Impact & Influence.
It comes exactly six months ahead of Cop28 in Dubai, where “private-sector engagement” is one of the key themes set by international firms.
Scientists have warned that temperatures rising more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels will likely trigger irreversible tipping points that would lead to a collapse of life on Earth.
The United Nations has said global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 at the latest and decrease by 43 per cent by 2030 to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C — the target set in the Paris Agreement.
But scientists also say that Earth is currently on track to warm by 2.5°C by 2100, which will completely melt the big ice sheets, thaw permafrost, destroy rainforests and lead to a collapse of marine life while rendering around a third of the equator uninhabitable for humans.
Researchers from today’s study called their findings “alarming,” while environmental campaigners hit out at the attitudes exposed.
Just Stop Oil warned that the world was already seeing “catastrophic extreme weather events, huge displacement due to mass flooding and mass crop failure” with the current 1.2-1.3°C warming.
Spokesman James Skeet told the Star: “It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that businesses do not take this existential threat seriously, that’s not how this economic system works.
“The Cop28 process has been co-opted by the oil industry and other polluting businesses, exemplified by the appointment of oil executive Sultan al-Jaber to head up the conference.”
Mr Skeet said that the reality was that “no-one is coming to save us” and that the only option left is for “normal people to step into civil resistance against our criminal governments and the corporations who own them.”
Extinction Rebellion said that corporations’ legal duty to create profit for shareholders meant they “never put the public interest ahead of the private interests of their shareholders.”
The group said: “Effective action on climate change has been blocked by the private interests that have hijacked both governments and the Cop process.
“That’s why we need citizens’ assemblies to create a crack in history, so citizens lead the way on deciding fair and effective ways out of the multiple crises we face.”
Scottish Greens environment spokesman Mark Ruskell said that big businesses have played a key role in fuelling the climate crisis and “bringing us to the brink of environmental breakdown,” and that today’s study underlines why “we can’t simply sit back and wait for them to change off their own accord.”
He said: “We need proper regulations and national and international action from both governments and polluters if we are to have any hope of meeting our climate obligations. We have no time to waste.
“There can be no second chances when it comes to our planet, and no amount of greenwashing can change that.”
