From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Companies Stall Climate Action Despite Earlier Promises   
   By Amrith Ramkumar, Ed Ballard and Shane Shifflett, Sept. 19, 2023, WSJ   
   Climate progress at big companies is hitting a wall.    
      
   The world’s largest companies have committed to slashing their emissions to   
   address climate change. Many of them have overpromised and underdelivered   
   because of higher costs, slow advances in technology and political pressure.    
      
   One big factor is a lack of trust in voluntary carbon markets. Many companies   
   had intended to use carbon credits to offset emissions that are hard to   
   reduce, such as the burning of jet fuel by airlines.    
      
   Those credits were supposed to cover short-term commitments. Companies are now   
   backing off of these goals while maintaining they are committed to long-term   
   targets. It is a sobering conclusion two years after the 2021 United Nations   
   climate summit in    
   Glasgow jump-started several climate initiatives.    
      
   Mining giant Rio Tinto can’t hit a near-term emissions target without using   
   carbon offsets. Delta Air Lines and other carriers are under similar pressure.   
   Shell and BP dialed back green-investment plans under pressure from investors.   
   Amazon.com    
   recently shelved a target to slash delivery emissions by 2030.    
      
   “Many companies are learning that the beginning of decarbonization is   
   easy,” said Günther Thallinger, a board member at insurer Allianz who   
   chairs a U.N. climate-focused investor group. “The moment you really need to   
   go into true transformation,    
   the work becomes quite difficult.”    
      
   This week, executives and government officials are in New York City for the   
   U.N. General Assembly and related climate events. Some companies are   
   announcing new climate goals, but many lack a clear path to achieve them.   
   Governments are lagging behind on    
   their commitments, too, according to the U.N.   
      
   The Treasury Department on Tuesday published best practices for financial   
   firms with long-term climate targets, building off work done by a   
   U.N.-convened alliance and others to get banks and investors to move faster   
   after making pledges.   
      
   Rio Tinto said recently that it would miss its 2025 emissions target unless it   
   used carbon offsets, which Chief Executive Jakob Stausholm called a last   
   resort. The company blamed the slow deployment of clean energy and low-carbon   
   equipment.    
      
   “The Western world is not moving very fast” on renewables, Stausholm said   
   on an earnings call. Less than two years ago, he said, “we have a clear   
   pathway to decarbonize our business.”   
      
   Environmental nonprofit CDP said that among nearly 19,000 companies using its   
   disclosure platform last year, just 81 had credible climate-transition plans.   
   Only one company on a list of 160-plus big emitters—Italian utility   
   Enel—had fully aligned its    
   capital-spending plans behind the energy transition as of last year, according   
   to an investor climate initiative.    
      
   A U.S. advertising watchdog recently asked meatpacking company JBS to halt   
   making claims such as “bacon, chicken wings and steak with net zero   
   emissions. It’s possible.” The body said JBS doesn’t have a plan to   
   deliver on the claims. JBS’s    
   business has been linked to deforestation in Brazil by environmental groups.   
   JBS disagrees with the watchdog’s decision and is reducing emissions while   
   working with partners on issues such as deforestation, a spokeswoman said.   
      
   Carbon credits were supposed to be used to neutralize emissions until   
   technologies such as green hydrogen and carbon capture were available. But   
   many cheap offsets tied to projects such as forestry or wind farms have been   
   shown to have limited benefits.   
      
   Those concerns chilled the market. Credit purchases fell 9% year-over-year in   
   the first half of 2023, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of market   
   data. Prices have also fallen.    
      
   Delta, JetBlue and EasyJet together accounted for nearly 15% of carbon-credit   
   purchases since 2020 but all reduced their purchases in the past year,   
   according to data provider Trove Research.   
      
   Delta plans to redirect much of its spending toward sustainable aviation fuel   
   later this decade, Chief Sustainability Officer Amelia DeLuca said. Delta’s   
   in-flight napkins previously claimed it was a carbon-neutral airline,   
   prompting a class-action    
   lawsuit.    
      
   “We’re pulling all available levers today,” DeLuca said. “Offsets were   
   the only lever in 2020. …The levers that are available to us continue to   
   change.”   
      
   JetBlue and EasyJet are pursuing similar investments in new technologies.    
      
   Few expected that shifting to clean energy would be quick, easy or cheap.   
   There are bright spots, including subsidies that have spurred billions of   
   dollars of investment in renewable energy, green hydrogen, batteries and   
   electric vehicles. If successful,    
   these will help companies make progress.    
      
   Setting climate goals creates progress by prompting companies to focus on   
   their emissions. New rules coming in Europe and California will require carbon   
   disclosure for nearly all big U.S. companies. The Science-Based Targets   
   initiative, or SBTi, a    
   nonprofit that assesses climate targets, has endorsed more than 3,400   
   companies’ goals and says ambition is increasing.    
      
   Still, some companies are failing to do what they promised. SBTi recently   
   named roughly 120 companies, including Amazon.com, that didn’t follow   
   through on their commitments to set goals endorsed by the group.   
      
   Amazon’s Climate Pledge network for companies has encouraged others to set   
   goals endorsed by SBTi, which Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Earth Fund has   
   backed.    
      
   The company also withdrew a plan to make half of its shipments “net zero”   
   by 2030. Amazon said the effort was superseded by a businesswide plan to   
   achieve net zero by 2040, but that doesn’t include nearer-term publicly   
   announced goals for delivery    
   emissions.    
      
   Amazon is progressing on its companywide targets and own science-based goals,   
   said head of worldwide sustainability Kara Hurst. SBTi’s process doesn’t   
   suit complex, high-growth businesses like Amazon, she said. SBTi declined to   
   comment on individual    
   companies’ targets.   
      
   Hurst said Amazon is nurturing green industries by being an early buyer of   
   products such as sustainable aviation fuel and paying a high price to remove   
   carbon from the air. The company is the world’s largest corporate buyer of   
   green power.    
      
      
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