Almost 1,200 companies worldwide have pledged to fight climate change by aligning their business plans with the Paris Agreement on climate change, which was signed two years ago, the We Mean Business coalition of nonprofits announced Dec. 12.
President Donald Trump has said he will withdraw the U.S. from the accord, but the report out today shows a growing commitment by businesses, along with nearly 200 nations and some U.S. cities and states, to pursue the accord's goals of slowing the pace of rising global temperatures largely by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Trump has called climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, and his administration has taken a number of steps to roll back key components of the prior administration's plan for keeping its commitments under the agreement.
As part of the We Mean Business movement, 327 corporations have set or have committed to setting science-based emissions reductions targets, and 864 companies said in filings this year with the CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, that they would establish science-based targets in the next two years.
The coalition also said 117 companies, including Schneider Electric, have committed to garnering all of their power supplies from renewables.
Also today, the governors of California and Washington, along with the heads of states and governments of Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile and Mexico, issued a declaration reaffirming their commitment to pursuing a carbon pricing platform. The announcement comes as key supporters of the climate accord, including French President Emmanuel Macron, met in Paris at the One Planet Summit to celebrate the anniversary of the agreement.
The announcement also comes one day after Exxon Mobil announced it would begin to disclose its climate change analyses in the face of shareholder pressure.
