More than 400 businesses, 120 investors and 150 cities and regions have promised to ensure the ambition set out by the Paris agreement is met or exceeded.
UK signatories include Barclays, BT, GSK, Kingfisher, Sky and Unilever, as well as the Scottish and Welsh governments, Greater Manchester authorities and the City of London. Investors such as Henderson, Hermes, Jupiter, L&GIM, Standard Life, the Environment Agency Pension Fund and the London Stock Exchange Group have also all signed up.
The pledge was launched by the COP21 French presidency and incorporates a range of initiatives to mitigate emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. These include members of the We Mean Business "Road to Paris" initiatives, Under 2 MOU, the White House Act on Climate Pledge, the Montreal Carbon Pledge, the Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI) Initiative and the Paris City Hall Declaration.
In a full-page advertisement in today's Financial Times, the signatories state: "We welcome the adoption of a new, universal climate agreement at COP21 in Paris, which is a critical step on the path to solving climate change. We pledge our support to ensuring that the level of ambition set by the agreement is met or exceeded."
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), praised the momentum from businesses, cities, provinces, regions, companies and citizens before and during the Paris talks.
"The Paris pledge for action is about taking that momentum to the next level in support of nations as they work towards raising ambition up to 2020 and well beyond. It is about building ever more support by non-state actors who are aligning with government policy as never before," she said.
The pledge is open to more signatories, click here to find out more.
