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Collaboration Back in Focus During Climate Week
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Welcome back. Nearly 85 companies, financial institutions and nonprofits have said they would work together to end plastic pollution. The group will be part of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, which will be convened by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and WWF, and was announced at Climate Week held in conjunction with the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week.
The group says it hopes to leverage a combined push from global businesses to force government action. At a meeting to be held in November, the group intends to outline common goals and guidelines on plastic use, reuse and leakage into the environment that will be shared with governments. The goal is to create a global policy framework instead of a patchwork of inconsistent regulations.
Already, an independent report found that countries aren’t collaborating enough to roll out sustainable technologies, undermining a major agreement made at the last U.N. climate summit in Glasgow.
The report, released this week, found the parties’ efforts are behind schedule and in jeopardy because of a lack of cooperation. For instance, in the power sector, the report said, renewable energy sources were growing at a faster clip than fossil fuels but the pace must quicken rapidly to meet the group’s goals by the end of the decade. Governments and companies should work together on new technologies to store energy and roll out higher energy-efficiency standards for household appliances, the report suggested.
“Without this collaboration, the transition to net-zero emissions will be much more challenging and could be delayed by decades,” said Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency's executive director.
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This week: Another carbon-credit marketplace; A Lehman moment in Europe; mining giant to spend billions to get rid of fossil fuels
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Content from our Sponsor: DELOITTE
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How Low-Carbon Hubs Can Accelerate Heavy Industry’s Path to Net Zero
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Collaborating on a low-carbon hub can offer companies in hard-to-abate sectors a cost-effective, high-profile way to reduce their carbon footprint with emerging technologies such as clean hydrogen. Read More ›
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Salesforce is known for its exhaustive range of business apps. Now it is launching a carbon-credit marketplace that it says will tackle the lack of clarity on pricing, project availability and ratings that carbon analysts say is pervasive in the largely unregulated market.
Salesforce’s marketplace will be out sometime in October with close to 90 projects, covering programs such as forestry, soil health and renewable energy in the developing world. Salesforce says its marketplace won’t require users to have an account to browse its lists of projects, which will detail prices, availability and ratings from third parties examining their quality.
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"The immaturity of the carbon marketplace is what is hindering action. There’s not a lot of trust; there’s not a lot of transparency. Buyers are afraid of making a mistake. Suppliers can’t connect with enough buyers."
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— Patrick Flynn, Salesforce’s global head of sustainability
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The International Sustainability Standards Board, which sets climate-disclosure rules, is advancing two proposals that would require companies to disclose sustainability- and climate-related risks. The ISSB aims to set a global baseline for these disclosures as companies currently report on environmental, social and governance topics under multiple frameworks.
Companies during the comment period, which closed in July, expressed concerns, including that the disclosures would put them at a competitive disadvantage and may require speculative assumptions.
The board began this week considering how the feedback will inform potential changes to the rules. The ISSB approved a redeliberation of a number of topics, including the potential breadth of the disclosures, legal risks associated with disclosing the information and how associated financial effects can be quantified given measurement uncertainties.
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Uniper was Germany’s largest importer of Russian natural gas and suffered heavy losses after Moscow throttled supplies. PHOTO: LENNART PREISS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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A Lehman Moment. Germany’s nationalization of gas giant Uniper lays bare the seismic ructions in the once-sleepy world of European utilities triggered by the new Cold War with Russia, writes WSJ's Rochelle Toplensky. Even if Lehman Brothers was the bank that didn’t get bailed out, Uniper is similarly too big to fail and German government officials are warning of further bailouts.
Cost: Berlin said it would inject €8 billion, equivalent to $7.9 billion, in return for new equity at a nominal value of €1.70 a share. It will also buy Finnish utility company Fortum’s majority stake in Uniper at the same rate.
Takeaway: Europe’s energy market was deemed fit for purpose only a few months ago, but expensive bailouts and a new appreciation for energy security have swung the pendulum away from deregulation. National governments and the EU are rushing through emergency measures to protect businesses and households from price rises. Discussions of broader market reform are also accelerating and seem likely to overhaul the merit-order marginal pricing of power, which links electricity prices to gas, much sooner than previously expected.
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DTC Solar. A software startup backed by the venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya is launching a digital platform that allows companies such as mortgage lenders and home-improvement retailers to sell rooftop solar installations directly to consumers.
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3.5 trillion tons
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The amount of greenhouse-gas emissions if we produce and burn the world’s fossil-fuel reserves, according to a new global registry.
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Join us at the WSJ Pro Sustainable Business Forum on Oct. 13, where we will discuss the critical sustainability issues facing business executives. With the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission due to introduce stringent reporting requirements, the forum will explore the practicalities of reporting and standards, and other topics. Register for tickets here.
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Australian mining giant Fortescue plans to spend more than $6 billion on renewable energy to stop using fossil fuels by 2030. That will bring the company closer to producing low-carbon steel for businesses clamoring for the metal to help meet their own climate goals.
The pledge, the first by a major mining company, hinges on a combination of wind-and-solar power, battery storage and hydrogen made from renewable energy.
Fortescue says it will cut its emissions close to zero, joining a small but growing number of companies such as NextEra Energy that call this goal “real zero.” The plan contrasts with net zero, which is when companies reduce emissions as much as possible and use carbon offsets for the rest.
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Shell Names New CEO With Environmental Impact Top of the Agenda
Shell named Wael Sawan as its next chief executive officer to succeed longtime CEO Ben van Beurden when he steps down on Jan. 1, in what could be a positive environmental move for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant. Sawan, a 25-year company veteran who has overseen the firm's renewable-energy efforts since late 2021, is expected to continue Shell's attempts to shift focus away from traditional oil-and-gas operations toward clean-energy sources. This comes amid growing pressure on major oil companies to fight climate change, with Shell having been hit by a landmark ruling in a Dutch court last year to cut its carbon emissions by 45% of its 2019 levels by 2030. Shell said its Scope 1 and 2 emissions accounted for 68 million tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 2021, equivalent to the greenhouse-gas emissions of the entire country of Austria, while its Scope 3 emissions totaled close to 1.3 billion
tons of CO2, according to the company. Shell has appealed the 2021 ruling, saying that it is being unfairly singled out in the case that was brought against it by environmental groups.
This is a sample of exclusive analysis of sustainability news from the Journal’s environment, social and governance (ESG) research analysts, whose work is primarily published by Dow Jones Newswires to help institutional investors and wealth managers integrate ESG factors into portfolio models, risk management programs and financial advice. The commentary by our research analysts is independent of the news coverage by reporters at the Journal. For more information about Dow Jones Newswires, click here.
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Car-rental company Hertz says it will buy up to 175,000 electric vehicles from General Motors over five years. (WSJ)
Policy, not renewables, is ruining Germany’s economy. (Barron’s)
California was a leader in incentivizing solar power. A new fee could undermine its success. (Bloomberg)
A Canadian lithium mine could be key for North American EV production. But it’s no guarantee. (New York Times)
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