MADRID (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th December, 2019) Nearly 180 companies of the world, employing nearly six million people and headquartered in 36 countries, have announced their intention to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of efforts to fight against climate change.
The decision was announced at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid. The first group of companies took a similar decision at the climate summit in New York in September, when 87 companies, employing 4.2 million people with the market capitalization amounting to $2.5 trillion expressed commitment to help combat global warming.
As part of the "business Ambition for 1.5�C - Our Only Future" campaign, 177 more companies participating at COP25, have pledged to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century compared with the pre-industrial era, and also achieve zero carbon dioxide emissions no later than by 2050.
These 177 companies from 36 sectors, including Chanel, Decathlon, Carlsberg, Europcar, Henkel, Iberia, Siemens Gamesa, Tesco, employ 5.8 million people, while their market capitalization amounts to $2.8 trillion. To date, their total annual carbon dioxide emissions are equivalent to the annual emissions of France.
A group of investors operating the assets worth about $4.2 trillion joined these companies and pledged to transform their investment portfolios into zero-emission companies by 2050.
The COP25 conference runs in the Spanish capital from December 2-13 and is chaired by Chile. The agenda is focused on the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement. The treaty's most well-known premise is to try to keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and to ideally pursue an even lower limit of 1.5 degrees. Representatives from almost 200 countries are in attendance, and about 30,000 people were accredited to the event.
