Emissions-intensive sectors ‘not going green fast enough’

New research by the Transition Pathway Initiative suggests businesses across the paper, cement, steel and aluminium industries need to step up action to hit international climate obligations

The most emissions-intensive sectors are not going green fast enough.

New research by the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) suggests businesses across the paper, cement, steel and aluminium industries need to step up action to hit international climate obligations.

In a new report, it assessed the ‘carbon performance’ of 72 such companies – it found only 29% of the largest publicly-listed industrial firms are set to align their emissions with the Paris Pledges by 2030.

Despite this figure being up by around a quarter since mid-2018, these pledges are still not expected to limit global warming to safe levels, with fewer than 19% businesses aligned with limiting warming to 2°C or below.

The report did find some good news – the TPI found the proportion of companies disclosing their emissions has increased from 61% in 2018 to 76% in current times and notes a large proportion of this improvement was driven by China and Russia.

The report reveals more companies are now setting long-term reduction targets and highlights the cement and paper sectors have seen “particular improvement”.

Faith Ward, Co-Chair of the TPI, said: “Industrial sectors like steel and cement face tough challenges to decouple emissions from production but make no mistake, these industries must transform themselves if they are to survive the low carbon transition and play their part in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.

“Today’s TPI data shows it can be done – with 14 companies now aligned with a path to keep global warming below 2°C. Yet most industrial companies are significantly off-track on climate and that is an abdication of corporate risk management that must be urgently corrected.”

Latest Podcast