Why companies matter for the global climate agreement

The Paris Agreement was the largest global agreement on climate change the world has ever seen. It committed almost every country in the world to reduce their emissions in line with keeping temperatures below 1.5ºC. This has led to countries making net zero commitments and implementing regulations to achieve their targets. However, there is a gap between the country-level commitments and policies and what is needed to achieve global decarbonisation. The private sector is driven to accelerate global decarbonisation by stakeholder expectation and investor pressure.

There are two key ways companies can contribute to global decarbonisation. First, they can set carbon reduction targets and develop carbon reduction strategies aligned to the frameworks available to them. Second, they can further accelerate decarbonisation through their participation in the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM).