Increasing transparency and credibility of company climate actions through the Global Climate Action partnerships
Climate actions by non-Party stakeholders, including companies, have a significant potential to fill the gap in the global emissions reductions trajectory. While accountability of countries as Parties to the Paris Agreement will be ensured under a new ‘transparency framework’ stipulated in Article 13 of the Paris Agreement, accountability of non-Party stakeholders’ voluntary actions and achievements will be considered according to the policies of jurisdictions in which they operate and the stakeholders to whom they committed. Under the UNFCCC, non-Party stakeholders are demonstrating their efforts and progress toward commitments to the global society through the Global Climate Action’s NAZCA platform. Information communicated through this platform needs to demonstrate transparency and credibility. Companies can contribute to estimating quantified impact of their actions to the global ambition by setting and meeting ambitious and science-based targets, providing transparent and credible reporting, tracking and reporting achievement of targets, engaging with governments and identifying efforts to reduce emissions that are additional to NDCs. The Global Climate Action should recognise companies whom demonstrate these leadership qualities as ‘climate action leaders’. Companies around the world have built up reporting skills under governmental and private schemes, making GHG emissions reporting an increasingly common practice. In this paper, the role of available governmental and private GHG reporting schemes, and the capacity built through them, are revisited and discussed in connection with the increased recognition of the role of non-Party stakeholders, including companies, under the Global Climate Action partnerships.