Businesses join White House climate push

The administration hopes these commitments give it momentum as officials head to Paris later this year for talks on a global climate change agreement.

The Paris talks are viewed as the last chance to limit manmade global warming to an upper limit of 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

More than a dozen US companies are throwing more than US$140 billion behind the fight to cut carbon emissions.

“Thirteen of America’s largest companies are joining President Obama to agree to a slew of policies meant to curb the effects of climate change, the White House announced Monday”.

“It’s significant because they are carbon-intensive, energy-consuming companies making a bottom-up commitment to address climate change”, Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based firm, told the Journal.

Under the pledge, the companies announced measures they would take internally to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions and deploy more clean energy.

Apple, one of the 13 countries, pledged to bring almost 300 MW of renewable energy online in five states and the Sichuan province in China. Bidness Etc believes this will greatly aid in actualizing the vision to reduce emissions, as power generation will be shifted from coal and other non-renewable plants to renewable energy.

Among the pledges, aluminium manufacturer Alcoa has agreed to reduce emissions by 50 per cent from its 2005 levels, while agricultural giant Cargill says 18 per cent of its total energy use will come from renewable sources. Berkshire Hathaway will invest almost $15 billion in constructing and installing renewable energy generators. Germany has taken a big step in this direction, as it has greatly invested in producing electricity through wind, solar, and biogas.

This marks a noteworthy departure from the state of climate treaty negotiations during the Obama administration’s first year in office, when many companies feared cost increases from the climate agreement etched out in Copenhagen in 2009 and showed some resistance. As the White House points out, the partnerships announced today “are only the beginning”, with a second round of pledges expected to be announced sometime this fall. And Secretary of State John Kerry will hold a forum at the State Department in October to highlight U.S. actions on climate investments and solutions.