Unilever : We’re going to COP26 to demand greater climate action

Businesses everywhere should be setting net zero goals now, with action plans and milestones, reporting on their progress, and engaging with suppliers, investors, and governments.

By helping to drive a faster transition to low-carbon, resilient economies, businesses can empower policymakers to be more ambitious. In turn, by creating the right combination of incentives, policies and frameworks, governments will help to propel business action to get the world on track to 1.5°C.

We want to see regulation to phase out coal and other fossil fuels, a price on carbon that reflects its true cost to society and nature, and a switch to renewable energy and electric vehicles. This should be coupled with an immediate roll- out of nature-based solutions and policies, which have a huge role to play in limiting warming to 1.5°C.

So ahead of COP26, every government needs to set a stretching climate target, which will help halve global emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050 at the latest. And share a pathway for how they will reach it.

We also need governments to protect people and livelihoods by providing support for developing countries, and climate finance to help people adapt and build resilience to climate change impacts. These impacts are already being felt everywhere and many of them are likely to continue or get worse, even in a 1.5°C future.