By David Stanway

SINGAPORE (Reuters)

More than 40% of major companies, cities, and regions still have not set greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, according to an annual “stocktake” released on Monday to assess global progress against catastrophic climate change.

Although more governments and enterprises made net-zero pledges since last year, their focus has been further diverted by wars, elections, and economic challenges, leaving a notable “commitment gap,” said Net Zero Tracker, a coalition of research groups based at the University of Oxford.

As countries prepare to submit new 2035 climate targets to the United Nations, policymakers and company boards are struggling to translate long-term goals into concrete actions, with transition plans often lacking robustness and detail, researchers noted.

John Lang, head of Net Zero Tracker’s Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, mentioned, “A common theme throughout this report is the persistent lack of integrity across the board.”

The report analyzed net-zero commitments and action plans from 198 countries, 706 sub-national regions, 1,186 cities, and nearly 2,000 publicly listed companies.

Findings revealed that while 1,750 out of over 4,000 entities made formal net-zero pledges, nearly 1,700 had not established any targets.

Among listed firms, just under 60% have set net-zero targets, a 23% increase from last year’s report, reflecting significant growth in pledges from Asia. The total number of companies lacking emissions targets decreased to 495 from 734 last year, including electric vehicle manufacturers Tesla and BYD, as well as Nintendo and Berkshire Hathaway.

The report highlighted Costa Rica, Volvo, and Google parent company Alphabet as examples of “good practice” in implementing net-zero pledges. However, only 5% of regions, cities, and companies met all of Net Zero Tracker’s criteria for “robustness,” which includes detailed plans to phase out fossil fuels.

Approximately half of the regions, cities, and companies have not set targets for non-CO2 greenhouse gases like methane, and many firms failed to account for emissions across their entire value chains or clarify their reliance on offsets to achieve targets.

Around 148 states covering 88% of the world’s population have net-zero commitments, with exceptions including Mexico, Iran, and Azerbaijan, the host of COP29 climate talks this November.

The report concluded that existing technologies could triple current climate ambitions, and the next round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted to the U.N. need to provide more detail on how targets will be implemented.

“There’s been some good progress, but we need a lot more,” remarked Catherine McKenna, former Canadian environment minister and chair of a U.N. expert group on net-zero commitments.