Just ahead of this week’s UN climate summit, Google, Amazon, and IKEA have made major renewable energy commitments.
The private companies have committed to completing Paris climate change accord goals ahead of planned benchmarks. These new commitments have followed a period of meaningful growth in corporate environmental pledges, with corporate demand for renewable energy jumping from 1.2 GW in 2014 to over 6.5 GW in 2018.
“Other actors are becoming fundamental, especially the business community and the local authorities,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Sept. 20. “That movement largely compensates for the lack of positive engagement by the government.”