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COP21 | Paris Climate Conference

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United Nations. Sustainable Innovation Forum 2015. UN Global Compact. A who's who among the COP21 commitments. This article was updated Thursday to include new commitments.

A who's who among the COP21 commitments

So, you support a strong global agreement at the U.N. TheSkimm's Guide to the Paris Climate Conference. You might have heard global warming is a thing.

theSkimm's Guide to the Paris Climate Conference

So have world leaders. They're getting together to agree on a plan to do something about it. The 12 days that will decide Earth's future: A guide to COP21. The past several years have seen a huge ramp up in climate activities and ambitions among businesses, states, regions and cities.

The 12 days that will decide Earth's future: A guide to COP21

6 big takeaways from the opening of the Paris climate conference. COP21 Day One: Mind-blowing...but surprisingly normal. Day One of the Paris climate conference was designed for impact.

COP21 Day One: Mind-blowing...but surprisingly normal

White House Launches American Business Act on Climate Pledge. Today at the White House, Secretary of State John Kerry and senior White House officials will host 13 of the largest companies from across the American economy who are standing with the Obama Administration to launch the American Business Act on Climate Pledge: Alcoa, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Cargill, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, PepsiCo, UPS, and Walmart.

White House Launches American Business Act on Climate Pledge

The companies making pledges as part of today’s launch represent more than $1.3 trillion in revenue in 2014 and a combined market capitalization of at least $2.5 trillion. Gates, Zuckerberg and Other Tech Titans Team Up to Push Clean Energy. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and several other of the world's wealthiest tech and business titans are banding together to fight climate change by investing billions in clean-energy research and technologies.

Gates, Zuckerberg and Other Tech Titans Team Up to Push Clean Energy

The Breakthrough Energy Coalition was announced ahead of the opening day Monday of the U.N. -organized climate talks outside Paris. More than 150 heads of state and government were gathering at the summit to try to find common ground on how to slow the rise in global temperatures. The coalition has pledged to invest in innovative ways to produce "clean" energy, especially in the developing world, and thereby cut down on climate-warming greenhouse gases.

The group of investors will pour money into companies working on clean-energy ideas. Bill Gates: Your question (and his response) Given that I'm at the COP21 U.N. climate conference, the subject of our encounter was climate change.

Bill Gates: Your question (and his response)

Gates, the billionaire nerd-turned-humanitarian, and founder of Microsoft, announced this week an investment partnership to help bring billions to clean energy research. I only had time to ask Gates one question before his handlers swept him away. Votes in Congress Move to Undercut Climate Pledge. This video is not currently supported on your browser.

Votes in Congress Move to Undercut Climate Pledge

Advertisement Continue reading the main story Video WASHINGTON — Hours after pledged Tuesday in Paris that the United States would be in the vanguard of nations seeking a global response to climate change, Congress approved two measures aimed at undercutting him. In a provocative message to more than 100 leaders that the American president does not have the full support of his government on climate policy, the House passed resolutions, already approved by the Senate, to scuttle rules that would significantly cut heat-trapping carbon emissions from existing and future coal-fired power plants. Most Americans Want A Global Agreement On Climate. As Republican leaders herald Congress’ power to hinder a global climate deal, most Americans say the U.S. should join an international treaty requiring America to reduce emissions, according to a new poll.

Most Americans Want A Global Agreement On Climate

The New York Times and CBS poll released Monday also notes that 63 percent of Americans favor limits on carbon emissions. The poll comes as delegates from nearly 200 countries are meeting in Paris in hopes of negotiating a climate deal that puts the world on a track to limit global warming to no more than 2°C. Many scientists believe that global warming would be irreversible and cause catastrophic effects beyond this threshold. Will Paris Climate Summit Lead to More Money for Scientists or Solyndras? Big news came out of Paris early in the twelve-day Conference Of the Parties (COP21), the global confab on climate.

Will Paris Climate Summit Lead to More Money for Scientists or Solyndras?

Video: Globe Debate: Can we beat climate change without killing the economy? The Business Case for Responsible Corporate Adaptation - Four Twenty Seven. Four Twenty Seven was the lead author on the latest Caring for Climate report on responsible corporate adaptation, developed in cooperation with the UN Global Compact, UNFCC and UNEP, and their partners. With this new publication, Caring for Climate compiles and showcases a wide range of corporate and public-private adaptation practices in different sectors and regions in order to: Raise awareness about the benefits of implementing climate risk assessments, and inform companies about subsequent adaptation activities that can be taken to mitigate those risks.Inspire other companies, regardless of size and geography, to implement private adaptation strategies and activities that also contribute to increasing societal resilience and meeting the SDGs.Highlight opportunities for policymakers to address the barriers that may hinder corporate adaptation activities.

How businesses support community resilience. Download the full report here. Report Summary. Are the COP21 corporate sponsors as green as they say they are? Some corporate sponsors of the COP21 Paris climate talks are failing to properly report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a new report reveals. The Paris climate conference is sponsored by over 60 companies including big polluters EDF, Engie and BNP Paribas.

And while countries continue to negotiate a deal on tackling climate change, what have these corporate sponsors brought to the table? A new study published this week by French social research group BASIC and the Multinationals Observatory shows that very few of the COP21 sponsors are declaring their GHG emissions in a transparent way. The report looked at the GHG emission reduction policies of ten COP21 sponsors: Accor, BNP Paribas, Carrefour, EDF, Engie, Kering, LVMH, L’Oréal, Micheline and Renault. Of these, only one company – EDF – has actually reduced its overall carbon footprint in line with EU targets.

Google joins RE100 and announces new investments in wind and solar power. Google has joined RE100 with an interim target to triple its purchase of renewable energy by 2025 and a long term goal to power all of its operations with renewables – a commitment originally announced in June 2015 when Google signed the American Business Act on Climate. Also announced today, Google will purchase a further 842MW of energy through a series of new wind and solar projects around the world, demonstrating that words are being put into action. Twitter Creates New Emojis to Mark UN's COP21 Conference. Twitter has introduced several new emojis activated by hashtags, in conjunction with the United Nations COP21 climate change summit in Paris.

Realizing the impact the high-level talks will have in regard to its platform, Twitter has attached the new emojis — which include an Eiffel Tower embedded in a green leaf (the summit’s official logo), a regular Eiffel Tower icon, and a heart-shaped earth — to the #COP21, #GOCOP21, #ActionDay, and #ClimateChange hashtags, respectively, reports Mashable.

The Twitter Government handle sent out a tweet regarding the new emojis, which can be seen below. The two-week COP21 summit is being attended by more than 150 world leaders, among them U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The U.N. claims there were over 400,000 tweets regarding the talks and that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (who has 16.3 million Twitter followers) was the most influential online participant. #COP21 News (@COP21_News) Twitter. #COP21Paris. #ParisClimateConference. #ParisClimateSummit. Cover Image Source.