Join global companies to reduce carbon emissions: Mahindra

One of India's top industrialists and Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra on Thursday asked businesses around the world to join the growing number of companies committed to setting greenhouse gas reduction targets in line with climate science.

"I commit that the Mahindra Group will implement the Paris Agreement in its entirety. A powerful way of ensuring corporate climate action, aligned with the ambition of the Paris Agreement, is by setting science-based targets," he said at a climate panel discussion at the ongoing annual World Economic Forum here.

More than 330 of the world's biggest companies have already committed to align their strategies with the ambition of the Paris Agreement through the Science Based Targets initiative.

The 2015 Paris Agreement's primary goal is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible to prevent dangerous tipping points in the climate system.

Almost 900 more companies have declared their ambition to set science-based targets within the next two years in their disclosures to the Carbon Disclosure Project, signalling the emergence of a new normal' in the way businesses are developing their strategies for the future.

Speaking on the occasion, Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan said: "Leaders at Davos need to connect the dots between the devastating climate impacts already underway, the demands of people around the planet, and their decisions as corporate or governmental leaders and step up their response."

"It is no longer enough to just support Paris in words -- they must, in the next months, announce what more they are going to do and by when. Davos is the right place to start," Morgan said.

Former US Vice President Al Gore, a Member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum, said this was the year for business leaders and governments to step up their efforts to solve the climate crisis.

"At the 2018 UN climate summit in December, world leaders should commit to strengthen their national climate targets," he added.

--IANS

vg/qd/bg