“It’s now or never if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C”. This was the clearest and strongest message so far by Jim Skea, co-chair of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and one of the most renowned UN scientists, in an appeal urging government and business leaders around the world to take climate action immediately. The most recent UN climate report, known as the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), comes with a crystal-clear warning: “without immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible” to combat climate change.

You may have heard that increasing global warming is causing climate change which is responsible for extreme weather events such as longer and more frequent droughts, heat waves, heavy downpours, tornadoes, tropical cyclones, and floods. This climate change poses challenges for governments, businesses, and people around the world.

For better understanding, we first need to define different terms that are used in this article: “weather” and “climate”. According to NASA, the weather describes “atmospheric conditions that occur locally over short periods from minutes to days” such as rain, snow, clouds, winds, floods, or thunderstorms. While the term climate refers to “the long-term regional or even the global average of temperature, humidity and rainfall patterns over seasons, years or decades”. So, to combat climate change the answer is clear: we need to limit anthropogenic, human-caused, global warming to 1.5 °C.

Source: https://climate.nasa.gov/

A report from the World Meteorological Organization predicted that the world could reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2025, in only the next four years. Going beyond that red line means significantly increasing the impact of climate change, like extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels, just to name a few examples. “Every fraction of additional warming beyond 1.5°C will result in increasingly severe and expensive impacts“, as the UN Environment Program stated.

The most evident answer to the biggest challenge of our times is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, meeting the global GHG emission reduction levels and achieving the net zero target by 2050 dictated by the Paris Agreement will demand long-lasting solutions and comprehensive climate action strategies.

Meanwhile, as a business, you need to recognize that elaborating and putting in place a GHG emissions reduction strategy requires holistic organizational and operational approaches across the whole company to have maximum impact.

Driving down greenhouse gases will hugely contribute to meeting the net zero goal, but at the same time improve air quality and public health, and spur investments to pave the net zero economy while reducing costs and risks from climate change.

However, this requires a stronger commitment of companies and organizations around the world to set holistic climate action strategies and take near-term and long-term actions that focus on reducing greenhouse emissions and investing in clean technologies.

Moreover, a climate action strategy should be embedded in the corporate strategy as an integral part of it. This allows you to implement it in the long term and a target-oriented manner. The management needs also to make sure, that the strategy of the company and the mitigation efforts are aligned.

Climate action for a business is no longer considered a matter of corporate responsibility or a branding opportunity. It is more than that: it is about remaining relevant and competitive. Certainly, as a company being sustainable, addressing climate change within your operations and supporting the overall transition to a net zero economy provide a competitive advantage.

But at the same time, taking climate action has become increasingly critical for companies to face the growing consumer demand, investor pressure, upcoming regulatory requirements and even to attract qualified and skilled manpower who are increasingly considering sustainability as an important criterion to accept a job offer. Incorporating an effective holistic climate action strategy at the core of your corporate strategy ensures your business’s long-term competitiveness and puts your company on firm footing to meet the net zero goal and take climate leadership that inspires other companies to follow.

It is a matter of fact, that real solutions to tackle climate change require ambitious and accelerated action on a global scale. Businesses of all sizes and from all industries are called to drastically reduce their corporate carbon footprint. However, governments need to set policies and frameworks that encourage economies on the path to net zero. Universities around the world have a key role to play in educating societies about reducing GHG emissions and pushing forward research on solutions to tackle climate change.