More than 130 major companies, including Ikea, Volvo Cars, eBay, Heineken, and Godrej Industries, have collectively urged world leaders to establish a timeline for the abandonment of fossil fuels at the upcoming UN climate summit, COP28, in Dubai.
These companies, representing nearly $1 trillion in global annual revenues, emphasized in an open letter the urgent need for addressing the primary cause of climate change – the burning of fossil fuels. They also highlighted the increasing impact and costs of extreme weather events due to climate change on their businesses.
Signatories to the letter include AstraZeneca, BT Group, Nestlé, Unilever, Bayer, Ørsted, Iberdrola, and Vodafone. The letter was coordinated by the We Mean Business Coalition, a nonprofit advocating for stronger global climate action.
“We call on all parties attending COP28 to seek outcomes that will lay the groundwork to transform the global energy system towards a full phaseout of unabated fossil fuels and halve emissions this decade.”
According to the letter coordinated by We Mean Business Coalition
Jesper Brodin, chief executive of Ingka, the company behind Ikea, told the Financial Times that the world was going to have to dump fossil fuels, but the key questions now were how and when. Brodin called on world leaders to take political responsibility to reach an agreement on this matter.
We are a huge community of corporate leaders that are asking our [world] leaders to take the political responsibility. We would like to see an agreement [on phasing out fossil fuels].
Jesper Brodin, CEO Ingka (Ikea’s parent company)
The phaseout of fossil fuels is expected to be a significant point of contention at COP28, with the European Union pushing for the issue’s inclusion. Last year, over 80 countries supported a proposal to gradually eliminate the use of oil and gas, while countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia opposed the motion.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers. COP28 president-designate Sultan al-Jaber, who also leads the country’s state-owned oil company, this year said unabated fossil fuels will need to be phased down by “mid-century” if the world is to limit global temperature rises to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris accord.
A COP28 spokesperson said the UAE was pushing for a tripling of renewable energy capacity. “The phase-down of fossil fuels is inevitable and essential, but it must also be just and orderly, and building a new energy system can only happen at speed and scale with united action.”
In the letter, the businesses said they — as big purchasers and users of energy — are “taking action and working towards phasing out our use of fossil fuels” and replacing them with the use of renewable energy.
But they called for financial institutions and policymakers to work with business to ensure capital is being allocated to accelerate the clean energy transition.
Many companies have set net zero targets for 2050, but they are concerned about the lack of coherent national and international policies to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals.
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