"Many big businesses have not set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Others have weak goals."
"For the past several years, BlackRock, the giant investment firm, has cast itself as a champion of the transition to clean energy.
Last month, Laurence D. Fink, BlackRock’s chief executive, wrote that the coronavirus pandemic had “driven us to confront the global threat of climate change more forcefully,” and the company said it wants businesses it invests in to remove as much carbon dioxide from the environment as they emit by 2050 at the latest.
But crucial details were missing from that widely read pledge, including what proportion of the companies BlackRock invests in will be zero-emission businesses in 2050. Setting such a goal and earlier targets would demonstrate the seriousness of the company’s commitment and could force all sorts of industries to step up their efforts. On Saturday, in response to questions from The New York Times, a BlackRock spokesman said for the first time that the company’s “ambition” was to have “net zero emissions across our entire assets under management by 2050.”
As the biggest companies strive to trumpet their environmental activism, the need to match words with deeds is becoming increasingly important."
Peter Eavis and Clifford Krauss report for the New York Times February 22, 2021.
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