| >Tech companies, which have some of the deepest pockets in corporate America, have been racing to come out with increasingly ambitious climate pledges. Amazon has a target to be net zero by 2040 and to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, and Facebook has a target of net zero emissions for its entire supply chain by 2030. >In 2020, Microsoft pledged to become carbon negative by 2030 and by 2050 to have removed all the carbon the company has ever emitted. Apple has committed to become carbon neutral across its whole supply chain by 2030. >And Google has pledged to power its operations with 100% carbon-free energy by 2030, without using renewable certificates to offset any fossil-generated power. “The science is clear, we have until 2030 to chart a sustainable course for our planet or face the worst consequences of climate change,” Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in a video announcing the policy. >Yet this strong pro-climate rhetoric is not being matched by action at a policy level, according to the report. “These gigantic companies that completely dominate the stock market are not really deploying that political capital at all,” said InfluenceMap executive director Dylan Tanner. So it seems that Big Tech is actually taking concrete steps to become carbon zero, and even carbon negative. The article is complaining that they are not spending enough money lobbying for climate legislation. I actually think that they are doing the right thing, taking concrete steps to prevent adding more carbon, and actually removing carbon from the atmosphere (Microsoft). And they are at least spending some money lobbying for more climate policy. However, with regards to climate policy, most governments are where pro-climate rhetoric is not matched by actual action (see Paris Accords, for example). I think Big Tech is actually doing a lot better than a lot of other institutions. |
Yes. It is good that they are cleaning up their own house, but to avoid the worst of the climate crisis we need all the leverage we can get.
We are out of time, we need to act now. In other words, big tech also needs to step up their lobbying, because federal legislation is the biggest lever we have.