Carbon Disclosure Project Report 2019 - Burning Issues

CDP is published by the Global Reporting Initiative.
It is aimed at measuring the carbon reduction activities undertaken by different companies and firms operating in various countries across the globe.
India secured the 5th spot on the project report.
The CDP Report 2019 said that a total of 58 companies shared details about the environment-related activities undertaken by them in this year.
The US topped the annual CDP report with 135 companies disclosing their climate-related activities, followed by Japan in the second position with 83 companies and the UK in the third position with 78 countries.
While France was placed fourth with 51 companies disclosing their details, India was placed fifth with 38 companies committing to the science-based targets.
In 2018, India had only 25 companies committing to the SBTs.
India was ranked 5th, ahead of Germany and Sweden.
India is the first developing economy with a maximum number of companies committing to the science-based targets.
The boards of 98% of the firms directly monitor climate change risks with top management integrating these concerns in performance evaluation.
2/3rd of the 59 firms that were surveyed use climate analysis tools to formulate their business strategies.
Improvement in disclosure rate has primarily been driven by investors who are actively pushing companies to reveal climate risks and take steps to reduce their carbon footprint.
Among the key focus areas of Indian firms is renewable energy. According to the report, 23 companies reported renewable energy targets in 2019, a 44% rise over 2018. Of these, Infosys, Dalmia Cement and Tata Motors have reported 100% RE consumption.

Fall in India’s CO2 Emissions

According to an analysis published in ‘Carbon Brief’, Carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions in India are set to grow at their slowest in the year 2019, which is a rise of only 2% from the year 2018. The 2% rate is a lower rate than any annual increase since 2001.
This fall will help India in achieving its renewable energy targets. The targets of India’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) include:
To reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35% by 2030 from 2005 levels.
To achieve about 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030. Global Concentration of Atmospheric CO2
On May 11, 2019 global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured to have crossed the 415 parts per million (ppm) mark for the first time.
The levels are as measured from Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii.
On every subsequent day from May 11, the daily average atmospheric concentration of CO2 has remained over that level.
The rapidly rising concentration is one of the key indicators of the manner in which the planet has been warming up.
The rapid rise in the atmospheric concentrations is due to the fact that C02 has a very long lifespan in the atmosphere, 100 to 300 years.
So, even if the emissions were to reduce to zero all of a sudden, it would have no impact on the atmospheric concentrations in the near term.
About half of emitted carbon dioxide is absorbed by plants and oceans, leaving the other half to go into the atmosphere.
An addition of about 7.5 billion tonnes carbon dioxide to the atmosphere leads to a 1 ppm rise in its atmospheric concentration.
The global community’s effort is to keep the rise in average surface temperatures below 2ºC higher than during pre-industrial times.
The carbon dioxide concentration level corresponding to a 2ºC rise in global temperatures is generally understood to be 450 ppm.