Mashable – Major companies, including tech giants Apple, Microsoft and Google have teamed up with the White House to urge international governments to reach a strong climate change agreement in Paris this December.
They’re taking action. On Monday, more than a dozen large companies announced a new partnership with the White House to expand renewable energy use and cut greenhouse gas emissions and water use. The companies, which also include Cargill, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, UPS and Walmart, agreed to back a strong international climate change agreement that is to be negotiated in Paris in early December.
The Paris talks are viewed as the last chance to limit manmade global warming to an upper limit of 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. By implication, the companies are also endorsing — or at least not objecting to — the Obama administration’s own climate goals, which are to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28% by 2025 compared to 2005 levels.
“No corner of the planet and no sector of the global economy will remain unaffected by climate change in the years ahead,” the fact sheet states.
By signing the “American Business Act on Climate pledge,” the companies are voicing “support for a strong outcome in the Paris climate negotiations,” according to the White House.
The corporate support for climate change action could affect the climate talks in Paris, since this is a new, influential corporate dynamic on the international stage. The tech companies who have signed on today together represent $1.3 trillion in revenue, based on 2014 data, according to a White House fact sheet.
As part of the pledge, each company agreed to take additional action to reduce their emissions.
In sum, the announcements total “at least $140 billion in low-carbon investment and more than 1,600 megawatts of new renewable energy,” the White House said.
Apple, for example, which already runs all of its U.S. operations on renewable energy, said it will bring an additional 280 megawatts of “clean power generation” online by the end of 2016 through investments in several states as well as in Sichuan Province, China.
According to the White House, Apple has cut carbon emissions from its global corporate facilities, data centers and retail stores by 48% since 2011.
Google has already committed to powering its operation with 100% renewable energy. Along those lines, it committed to tripling its renewable energy purchases by 2025.
As a company headquartered in bone dry California, Google pledged to cut its water use by 30% at its San Francisco Bay area headquarters in 2015, compared to a 2013 baseline. The company has been installing drought tolerant plants and using recycled water irrigation, among other measures, to cut water use.
“We believe that by directly investing in renewable energy projects, we can help accelerate the shift to zero-carbon power and create a better future for everyone,” the company said in the White House fact sheet.
As for Microsoft, the company also agreed with the increasingly popular tech sector pledge of purchasing 100% renewable energy for operating its data centers, offices, labs and manufacturing facilities.
The White House’s business push comes during what is expected to be the hottest year on record globally, beating the record high set just last year. June was the planet’s hottest such month since reliable instrument records began in 1880. For example, 14 of the 15 warmest years since record-keeping began in the late 1800s have occurred since the year 2000.
The companies behind the pledge are not limited to tech firms, however. Coca Cola, for example, pledged to cut “the carbon footprint of “the drink in your hand” by 25% by 2020.
Even Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment firm, pledged to achieve carbon neutrality “across our operations and business travel” starting this year and continuing thereafter. The company is also planning to purchase 100% renewable power for the company’s electricity needs by 2020.
Alcoa, the aluminum manufacturing giant, pledged to cut its emissions by 50% in the U.S., compared to 2005 levels, by 2025. And Berkshire Hathaway Energy, an offshoot of billionaire Warren E. Buffet’s investment firm, pledged up to $15 billion more for investments in renewable energy generation construction and operation.
In addition, Berkshire Hathaway Energy pledged to construct an addition 522 megawatts of new wind generation in Iowa and shut down more than 75% of the companies coal-fired power plants in Nevada by 2017.
Perhaps more importantly, the company pledged to invest in electrical transmission infrastructure in the West and Midwest, where most of the country’s solar and wind generation takes place, to better integrate renewable energy into the country’s electrical grid.
Because wind and solar are intermittent sources of power (the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow), incorporating them into the standard electrical grid has its challenges.
And Walmart, which is already one of the largest users of solar energy across the U.S. and most forward-thinking companies when it comes to cutting emissions from improving fuel efficiency and reforming product packaging practices, pledged to increase its procurement of renewable energy globally by more than 600% compared to a 2010 baseline. This includes doubling the number of on-site solar energy projects at U.S. stores by 2020.
This marks a noteworthy departure from the state of climate treaty negotiations during the Obama administration’s first year in office, when many companies feared cost increases from the climate agreement etched out in Copenhagen in 2009 and showed some resistance.
The White House is planning to announce a second round of pledges in the fall, “with a goal of mobilizing many more companies to join.” And Secretary of State John Kerry will hold a forum at the State Department in October to highlight U.S. actions on climate investments and solutions.
Kerry will be on hand to make the climate pledge announcements at the White House on Monday.
In its push for a strong Paris climate agreement, the White House faces widespread and deep opposition in both houses of Congress, where many Republicans doubt the mainstream science findings on manmade global warming.
Article by Andrew Freeman for Mashable
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