World’s largest companies stall climate action despite promises
By Paul Homewood
Cutting emissions is proving harder than committing to cut emissions
Climate progress at big companies is hitting a wall.
The world’s largest companies have committed to slashing their emissions to address climate change. Many of them have overpromised and underdelivered because of higher costs, slow advances in technology and political pressure.
One big factor is a lack of trust in voluntary carbon markets. Many companies had intended to use carbon credits to offset emissions that are hard to reduce, such as the burning of jet fuel by airlines.
Those credits were supposed to cover short-term commitments. Companies are now backing off of these goals while maintaining they are committed to long-term targets. It is a sobering conclusion two years after the 2021 United Nations climate summit in Glasgow jump-started several climate initiatives.
Mining giant Rio Tinto can’t hit a near-term emissions target without using carbon offsets. Delta Air Lines and other carriers are under similar pressure. Shell and BP dialled back green-investment plans under pressure from investors. Amazon.com recently shelved a target to slash delivery emissions by 2030.
“Many companies are learning that the beginning of decarbonization is easy,” said Günther Thallinger, a board member at insurer Allianz who chairs a U.N. climate-focused investor group. “The moment you really need to go into true transformation, the work becomes quite difficult.”
This was always highly predictable!
Companies jumped on the bandwagon at the outset, partly out of the desire to virtue signal and partly due to pressure from environmentalist shareholders. But it was always obvious that there was little they could do to substantially cut emissions, without massively expense and disruption. Even then they would still remain stuck with the energy supplied to them by the State.
Rio Tinto, for example, still needs mining equipment, earth movers and shipping, which all run on fossil fuels.
Carbon offsets were an easy, relatively inexpensive way to show immediate “emission savings”. But increasingly it is evident that most offsets actually do not cut emissions at all.
I suspect that many companies and investors are growing tired of spending money for no good reason at all.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Maybe it is because some companies are finally prepared to admit that the miniscule amount of carbon dioxide created by man cannot and does not have any effect on the climate. The predominant greenhouse gases are clouds and water vapour anyway. In the past global temperatures have always risen BEFORE an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a good gas and essential to life. The climate is mostly affected by the power of the sun.
I doubt that the bosses of most companies understand the role (or lack thereof) of carbon dioxide on the climate.
But they certainly understand a balance sheet and that their bonus depends of growing turnover and profits.
Sometimes, for the woke organisations, bonuses are not awarded for boring financial goals, but for ESG and EDI goals. Go woke, go broke.
Praise the Lord and pass the biscuits–it sounds like reality is beginning to sink into these company’s that were so quick to jump on the approved Climate Hoax bandwagon. They are stalling for time, as they–unlike the climate hoax zealots, are beginning to realize the rest of The West is not as credulous as they. Keep a good thought this trend continues.
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Slightly off topic but the BBC has a news item on its website about research to improve crop yields by more effective photosynthesis without one mentioning carbon dioxide. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66798680#
I was watching Michael Portillo’s rail journeys around the UK, latest series mentions the dreaded Climate change in each episode, pure propaganda.
Hilarious! Solar radiation is not converted into biomass – it’s the energy needed to drive the chemistry and, obviously, has no mass.
Once
People need products that do what they are supposed to do at reasonable quality and price. That is unlikely to happen for both except by pure chance if product X is “climate friendly” (whatever that is supposed to mean), not to mention that the climate changes naturally whether product X exists or not.
Ice core records show that it snows most where long term ice is sequestered in warmest times and colder times follow.
Ice core records show that it snows least where long term ice is sequestered in coldest times and warmer times follow.
These alternating warm and cold have occurred as far back as data goes, back ten thousand years, back hundreds of thousands of years and back millions of years.
After warmer years with more ice sequestering, ice advances and causes colder.
After colder years with less ice sequestering, ice sheets thin and then retreat which causes warmer.
Changes in CO2 have followed these temperature changes, indicating a result and not a cause.
Climate science achieved consensus while not enough was known.
The honest approach to science, question everything, needs to be brought back into climate science, it is clear that the consensus is wrong.
Wisest words I’ve seen for quite a while!
“Climate Friendly” means, over-priced, scarcely available and of limited utility or as-advertised functionality. Translation: Just buy it anyway, we’re virtue signaling here.
Hopefully, it will all fall apart; it’s a scam — as we all know.
NetZero is probably the biggest pipe-dream of all time, closely followed by the Covid con and the Emperor really has no clothes?
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Kyoto 2.0 calls for Petition Project 2.0