Group8_B | SDG 13 : Climate Action

 Climate Change, are we doing anything about it?


Authored by: 

Amogh Sinha BJ21070, Eric Binu Robert BJ21081, Kshitij Verma BJ21088,

Lavanya Gupta BJ21090, Nikhil N. Vasisht BJ21095,

Rahul Choudhary BJ21102, Sejal Agarwal BJ21109

 

Whenever we hear the words climate change, flashes of polar bears moving around in melted snow water, flooding of cities like Mumbai, New York, and dramatic new headlines cross our minds. There have been several Hollywood movies that had tried to imagine what would it be like when Climate Change effects were to take their fuller form and impact Earth, the consequences the human race will have to face. Movies like Wall-E and 2012 very clearly demonstrate that with our continued habits, Earth will be inhabitable. United Nations General Assembly, to promote combative thinking amongst nations, initiated the formation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and described it as a blueprint to achieve a more sustainable future. In this blog, we cover SDG 13, Climate Action.



Figure 1: UN SDG 13 Logo and Statement (Source : Goal 13 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs (un.org))

It was established in 2015 with officially released wordings "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts". This SDG is branched into five targets where 3 of them are output targets, and 2 are means of achieving that output. The main output of this SDG is to integrate climate consciousness into policies that countries have, which will strengthen resilience and help fight disasters in a better manner. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the primary international forum for the response to climate change on a global platform.

How does India fit into the global puzzle?

Due to the large population and it being a developing country, Climate Change and its impact are relevant to India not only because its practices have a very degrading impact on the environment but also because the number of people impacted is also the highest. India is the third higher producer of carbon dioxide and was also emitting 6.9% of the total global emissions until 2015. However, post SDG 13, India made visible committal changes to its sustainable policies and goals. The government adopted a National Action Plan on Climate Change. It was formalised on 30th June 2008 with the following sub-missions of the plan:

  1.    National Solar Mission – To increase the share of solar energy produced in the total energy mix.
  2.    National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency – Allowing trading of energy efficiency certificates to facilitate cost-effectiveness of energy savings.
  3.  National Mission on Sustainable Habitat – To improve waste management techniques in buildings and promote using of mass transport.
  4.    National Water Mission – To ensure equitable distribution of water amongst different areas of the country along with integrated water management.
  5.    National Mission for Sustaining Himalayan Ecosystem – To safeguard the glaciers and the biodiversity and ecosystem of the Himalayan range.
  6.    Green India Mission – Creation of carbon sinks along with other ecosystem services
  7.    National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture – To make agriculture and its practices more immune to climate change.
  8.    National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change – To fund highly focused and resourceful research on climate change.



Figure 2 Protest against climate change, New Delhi (Source: Al Jazeera)

With these measures, India has committed to reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33-35% by 2030 and to improving the overall adverse impact it has on the climate. According to the Global Climate Risk Index, India ranks 12th in being vulnerable in being affected by climate change, and yet there is no clear clarity on how Nation Action Plan has fared. It sees almost 3570 deaths every year due to climate effects. Hopefully, the government will take its implementation more seriously and make good use of the policies instead of it just being an international pacification technique.

Business Implications and Responses

Amazon - Amazon's mission of being Earth's most customer-centric company means that it also directs efforts towards building a business that treats the Earth well too. They founded the Climate Pledge, a collaborative pledge to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040, and also aim to be powered 100% by Renewable Energy by 2025. Moreover, considering Amazon's role in the global supply chain of goods, they also aim to halve shipment emissions by 50% and deploy 100,000 electric vehicles by 2030. This is a significant objective since the transport sector is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. Aside from funding the development of sustainable technologies, Amazon also launched ecolabels for the products on its platform in the form of 'Climate Pledge Friendly.' In this manner, Amazon is aiming to achieve SDG 13 across all of its operations, from its warehousing facilities, offices, logistics to the products on its platform.

Asian Paints - Asian Paints is committed to acting sustainably in their everyday business and preparing for future decisions.

They are continuously innovating to make their products sustainable for the environment. Royale Health Shield is the perfect example. It is low VOC, asthma and allergy-friendly, and most importantly, conforms to strict international environment and safety standards.

Asian Paints has made various efforts to reduce its impact on the environment. In recent years, they have accelerated efforts despite facing setbacks due to the pandemic. On-site and off-site recharge projects helped them recharge 185% of the freshwater consumed within their eight manufacturing locations. FY 2021-22 saw a reduction of 15.4% of Hazardous waste from the previous FY and a 56% overall improvement over FY 2013-14.

Additionally, in the last financial year, Asian Paints consumed 42 Million units of electricity from renewable sources, with renewable resources making up 57% of their total energy consumption.

Under plastic Extended Producer Responsibility, they met their targets by collecting and reprocessing 2,798 MT flexible plastics across different states and diverting them away from municipal landfills and water bodies. Asian Paints Vizag factory received a Platinum rating under the IGBC (Indian Green Building Council) green buildings rating system, a globally recognised certification system.

They further aim to continue enriching the lives of their customers by developing safe and sustainable products while also reducing the environmental footprint of their manufacturing processes and achieving SDG 13 across their operations.

Standard Chartered -Standard Chartered has committed to reaching net-zero carbon emission from its operations by 2030 and from its financing by 2050. Its focus is on reducing carbon emissions caused by energy consumption, business travel and paper consumption, as well as reducing water consumption. As a banking company, Standard Chartered's contribution towards the achievement of SDG 13 is two-pronged. On one end, it sets environmental and social standards for its clients via position statements, which they are expected to meet if they wish the bank to fund them. The position statements are highly focused on the carbon-intensive clients that come under the company's portfolio. On the other hand, it partakes in directly tackling climate change via its Sustainable Finance Team and recently announced its plan to fund and facilitate $ 35 bn towards renewable energy between 2020 and 2024.

Deloitte - Deloitte has launched Goal Impact 13 platform that provides transparent information about the most impactful climate-related initiatives in place, highlights gaps in place and encourage more ambitious actions. The platform aims to promote cross-sector collaboration so that organisations working on similar initiatives or challenges related to climate change can collaborate to accelerate the progress.

Deloitte has committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030. It plans to source 100% of electricity through renewable energy and convert its entire fleet of vehicles to hybrid or electric.

The company is also using its extensive network to ensure its clients and suppliers also take steps to mitigate the climate change risk. It has more than 800 sustainable specialists employed to help its partner clients transition to sustainable business models and practices.

           Figure 3 Deloitte India Climate Change Initiative (Source : Deloitte Annual Report 2020)

Bain & Company - Bain views climate change as an urgent priority and has taken multiple actions to reduce its emissions and conserve the environment. As a part of this, it has gone ahead and offset all carbon emissions that can be traced back to the firm, even including emissions that are a part of internal and client travel. Bain went on to pledge to decrease its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30% over the coming five years and also plans to decrease the scope three emissions from travel by 35%. Bain plans to reduce waste generations by 90% by 2030. It also is striving for increasing energy efficiency in its offices and move to 100% sustainable energy.

Analysis and way forward

A lot of people believe that since they are experiencing winters in full force, climate change is a myth. It is created by governments to regulate industries and to enforce further restrictions on some. Not too long ago, Donald Trump famously denied Climate Change to be a major cause of concern and wanted to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, where countries pledged to take active steps against climate degradation practices. Thus, the awareness regarding Climate change and its effects are still alarmingly low, even in developed countries like the US. Once the causes are identified, can they be mitigated by awareness and action? The devil lies in the details, and hence to understand the way forward to combat Climate Change, we analysed the reason behind the increase of greenhouse gasses emissions.

Rising Population: With the exponential rise in population over the last century, the greenhouse gasses emitted in the atmosphere has substantially increased. It is more observable in localities with higher population density.

Increased Urbanisation: To accommodate the population, more and more cities and towns have come up, which have directly resulted in the loss of forests and again more sources of emission.

Rapid Industrialisation: To meet the rising demand industries have been increasing production exponentially.

While researching for the blog, we also realised the political inaction towards climate change had contributed a lot towards it. From deforestation in Amazon to license being issued to create factories right in the city centre in Bangladesh. We observed that political inaction and an engineered stigma towards the concept of climate change had derailed the progress the world could have made towards irradicating the same.

One of the main issues that governments and authorities face is the measurement metric of climate change at the granular level. Climate Change is a slow degrading process of the environment, and improvements in the same are visible in a slower manner. However, action has to be taken on a continuous and conscious basis. Following actions could be taken for a more stable future:

  1.       Formulation of key metrics - Certain metrics such as rising water levels, decreasing temperatures year on year etc., don't have a direct consequence for individual businesses and not are directly impacted by the action of one. Therefore, the companies become lax in attitude towards climate degradation and their contribution towards it. Important metrics should be formulated by the government so that to make the impact immediate, actionable and tangible. There have been examples of them in the past, such as Carbon tax, energy certificates. However, none of them has gained prominence, and they should be promoted further.
  2.       Cost-effectiveness in the adoption of greener practices – The cost of producing solar panels or for the adoption of machine which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions is relatively high compared to the usual machines, which discourage companies from making the investment.
  3.      Incentivised research and development of green tech – The government should take steps to encourage green tech research in order to make it cheaper and more accessible to all levels of society. When habits are inculcated, it will be easier for future generations to adopt them.
  4.       Awareness and consciousness – As discussed, the awareness level amongst the most educated is also astonishingly low. Concrete steps should be taken from the early educational steps of a person to make them aware of the importance of Climate Change. Not only theory but also practically they should be taught to make them more aware.

 

 

Figure 4 Climate Action for children (Source: United Nations in India)

References

1.      https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/india-s-national-action-plan-on-climate-change-needs-desperate-repair-61884
2.      https://www.mdgmonitor.org/sdg13-fight-climate-change-and-its-effects/
3.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goal_13
4.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals
5.      https://in.one.un.org/page/sustainable-development-goals/combat-climate-change-sdg-13/
6.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Action_Plan_for_Climate_Change
7.      https://moef.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/CC_ghosh.pdf
8.      https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/about/goals-and-progress
9.      https://sustainability.asianpaints.com/sustainability/pdf/Sustainability-Report-2020-2021.pdf
10.   https://www.sc.com/en/sustainability/being-responsible-company/#Environment
11.   https://www.sc.com/en/sustainability/position-statements/climate-change/
12.   https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/strategy-operations/articles/goal-13-impact-platform.html
13.   https://www2.deloitte.com/lk/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/blogs/gx-unga-sustainable-development-goals-pearson-blog.html
14.   https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/annual-report-2020/stories/working-towards-net-zero-emissions-by-2030.html

 

 

 

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