Mahindra Group sets 11 new commitments to cut emissions
Bonn : Taking the initiative in action against climate change, top Indian corporate Mahindra Group at a UN summit here on Tuesday announced 11 new commitments to cut emissions in line with the landmark 2015 Paris agreement goals.
With this, Mahindra push the number of major global companies with science-based targets to over 400.
Briefing delegates and journalists on the margins of the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference, Mahindra Group’s Chief Sustainability Officer Anirban Ghosh announced business had taken an important step forwards today.
In total, 13 of its companies have now committed to cut their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals by signing-up to a science-based target, he said.
Welcoming this development, Summit Co-Chair and top UN Climate Change official Patricia Espinosa said: “At COP24 in Katowice (Poland), the world has much to accomplish to ensure that the Paris Agreement delivers the desired result, which is to keep climate change within manageable limits.
“Thankfully, the revolutionary progress underway in the ‘real world’ economy, which will descend on California in September, will be instrumental to helping make Poland a success.”
Organisers of the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) taking place this September in San Francisco on Wednesday displayed new evidence of how cities, states, regions, businesses and investors are taking climate ambition to the next level.
In this way, they are helping to build momentum for a successful outcome for the UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice at the end of the year.
The summit in San Francisco will be hosted by California Governor Jerry Brown; UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Climate Action Michael Bloomberg; Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra and Espinosa.
To date, over 700 leading businesses around the world have made strategic climate commitments through the ‘We Mean Business’ coalition’s Take Action campaign.
Collectively, these companies represent 2.62 gigatons of emissions, which is equivalent to the total annual emissions of India.
The announcement by the Mahindra Group responds to one of the five “Summit Challenges” being presented to sub-national governments, business and civil society worldwide in advance of the Global Climate Action Summit.
Its commitment falls under the second of the five challenges – Inclusive Economic Growth – and means that so far 400 companies have positively reacted to this particular “call to action,” which aims to sign on 500 companies by the conclusion of Global Climate Action Summit in September.
“There is remarkable congruity between the goals of the Paris Agreement, the Indian government, and businesses like the Mahindra Group. India, like the Agreement, is driven by a strong belief at the highest political level that pursuing environmental stability is the only way forward,” Anand Mahindra said in a statement.
“As a result, India has set extremely ambitious targets in the area of renewable resources and is actually ahead of schedule in meeting some of these. In my business, we are driven by the belief that sustainability is a business opportunity as well as a way to make work meaningful for our young millennials.”
Global Climate Action Summit Communications Director Nick Nuttall said, “2018 is the year when the world must step up climate action to bend down emissions by 2020 — and set the stage for the fast and full implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and its crucial temperature goal.”
“The summit will bring businesses, states, cities, regions, territories and people from around the world together and in common cause to take climate ambition to the next level,” he added.
—IANS
