Climate change: Asia-Pacific CEOs, boardrooms show apathy as large majority fails to deliver net-zero plans

Name: New UN report on climate change shows a ‘litany of broken promises’, says UN chief Guterres
Uploaded: 2022-04-18T05:30:09.000Z
Duration: 2 min 7 s
Description: New UN report on climate change shows a ‘litany of broken promises’, says UN chief Guterres

Only 291 of 3,879 companies in Asia-Pacific region have laid out their plans to attain net-zero carbon emissions at the end of 2021, according to CDP report

Among 65 per cent with active emissions reduction targets, fewer than one in three had science-based targets that provide a clearly-defined pathway

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A villager walks in front of a coal-fired power plant on the outskirts of Datong, Shanxi province in China. Photo: Reuters

Yujie Xue

Published: 1:30pm, 18 Apr 2022

Companies in the Asia-Pacific region are still largely indifferent to efforts to contain global warming and other climate-change risks, with only 8 per cent signing up to plans to reach net-zero targets, according to an industry report.

Only 8 per cent of companies in the region have put in place their plans to meet net-zero carbon emission targets at the end of 2021, according to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). It underscores the urgency for chief executive officers to step up in the region deemed highly vulnerable to climate deterioration.

CDP is a non-profit organisation that runs the world’s environmental disclosure system for companies, cities, states and regions. Together with climate solutions provider South Pole, it analysed data disclosed by 3,879 companies in the region which account for 14 per cent of global market capitalisation.

“What the Asia-Pacific region does or does not do today to address the looming climate crisis will be felt across the entire world,” John Davis, director for Asia-Pacific at South Pole, said in a press statement on Friday.

02:07

New UN report on climate change shows a ‘litany of broken promises’, says UN chief Guterres

Floods in China’s central Henan province in July killed more than 300 and cost more than US$17 billion in damages. China suffered the second worst setback from the catastrophe, among 50 major flood events which caused US$82 billion of losses last year, according to Swiss Re.

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