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With 2020 fast approaching, former United Nations Climate Change Chief Christiana Figueres has called on the global community to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. Joined by a group of leading climate and business experts, Figueres has launched a campaign highlighting why 2020 is a critical turning point and how it can be achieved. The campaign draws on findings from the report 2020: The Climate Turning Point, which features the most up-to-date scientific basis for urgent action to reduce emissions, as well as a roadmap of action to 2020.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) launched 'We're Accelerating Climate Action,' a global campaign to raise awareness of the steps being taken worldwide by companies, cities, and investors to curb GHG emissions. The UNFCCC launched this campaign to promote the actions of the more than 11,000 companies, cities, and investors that have submitted their GHG reduction initiatives on the NAZCA online portal

Unprecedented momentum is being delivered by over 600 companies committed to bold climate action, through the We Mean Business coalition's Take Action campaign. The campaign brings together strategic climate commitments, facilitated by the We Mean Business coalition partners, which are collectively helping these companies tackle some 2.31 gigatons of Scope 1+2 emissions - equivalent to the total annual emissions of Russia. These initiatives are also helping companies to harness climate action as a driver of innovation, competitiveness, risk management and growth.

Ninety-one percent of companies in the S&P Global 100 Index see extreme weather and climate change impacts as current or future risks to their business, but many struggle to translate long-term, global climate data into short-term and local risks, according to a new report by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Despite growing access to climate-related data and tools, companies say they need "actionable science" that helps them understand locally-specific risks or risk scenarios.

When it comes to the private sector's efforts to curb climate change, the rubber hit the road at New York Climate Week. Companies and their nonprofit partners announced numerous milestones and hosted discussions throughout the city to translate lofty goals into action. Meanwhile, new initiatives were launched to deepen collaboration among the private sector, governments and civil society.

An international team of scientists has proposed a series of deadlines by which humanity must take serious action to combat climate change if it is to meet the ambitious goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, and stave off potential disaster. The team behind the study hopes that these points of no return will help inform debate, and spur leaders to take action to mitigate the threat of climate change while there is still time.

One year after Superstorm Sandy devastated the East Coast, 20 major U.S. brands including Starbucks, Unilever and Mars, Inc. are calling for the White House to follow through on climate change preparedness efforts outlined in the Climate Action Plan announced by President Obama on June 25.

On Tuesday at COP21, the MIT Climate CoLab announced the launch of a series of online contests to help strengthen the resilience of vulnerable countries to respond to climate-related hazards. The suite of contests are part of the UN Secretary-General's Climate Resilience Initiative: Anticipate, Absorb, Reshape (A2R), a global, multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at accelerating action on the ground to enhance climate resilience of the most vulnerable countries and people by 2020. 

This UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study report reveals that the UN climate summit (COP21) is critical to supporting private sector investment and that executives see climate change action as an opportunity for growth and innovation. Among the world's largest companies, those with annual revenues in excess of US$1 billion, 70 percent see opportunities for growth within the next 5 years and 69 percent see investment in climate solutions as essential to competitive advantage.

As the UN climate talks in Paris near, 68 additional companies have joined the White House-led American Business Act on Climate Pledge.

Federal agencies must disclose how their actions will impact climate change, according to White House guidance issued today. Read more: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2016/08/02/white-house-to-federal-agencies-consider-climate-change-impacts-of-your-actions/#ixzz4II292aQe

The citizens of four major European countries think the impacts of climate change such as severe floods and storms are already affecting them, according to a major new polling study. The research dispels the idea that global warming is widely seen as a future problem, and also shows strong support for action to tackle global warming, including subsidies for clean energy and big financial penalties for nations that refuse to be part of the international climate deal signed in Paris in 2015 - as US president Donald Trump has threatened.

We Mean Business describes itself as "a coalition of the world's most influential businesses calling for ambitious climate policy and bold climate action." The new group - a coalition of coalitions, really - aims to fill a void to counter well-heeled trade groups, think tanks and corporate lobbyists aimed at maintaining the status quo.

When it comes to the private sector's efforts to curb climate change, the rubber hit the road at New York Climate Week. Companies and their nonprofit partners announced numerous milestones and hosted discussions throughout the city to translate lofty goals into action. Meanwhile, new initiatives were launched to deepen collaboration among the private sector, governments and civil society.

While national leaders spout optimistic platitudes celebrating the great achievement of the globally unifying Paris Agreement on climate, environmentalists note that there is little in the way of substantial action plans behind the many promises made last December. Meanwhile, the most intense El Niño in history is leaving in its wake a world gripped by 7 months of record high temperatures; drought, water shortages, and famine (especially in India and Africa); wildfires (Fort McMurray, Canada); record coral bleaching; and a fast shrinking Arctic ice cap that set stunning early melt records this winter and spring.

ust 18 months after its launch, the Science Based Targets initiative announced that 200 companies have committed to set emissions reduction targets consistent with the global effort to keep temperatures well below the 2-degree threshold. In the past year, the initiative has seen a growth rate of over 2 companies per week committing to set science-based targets, far exceeding the project's timeline and signaling that climate action has gained tremendous momentum in the private sector.

The joint announcements set a powerful precedent for other countries to emulate, and could foster ambitious international action in the near term. Many have their eye on international climate negotiations in Paris next year, where the U.S. and China's bilateral cooperation could lay necessary groundwork for a potential future international climate treaty.

Two Asian nations are on track to exceed their climate goals by 2030, according to the Climate Action Tracker, an analysis produced by a consortium of nonprofits and consulting groups. China and India both have made renewable energy investments and have committed to burning less coal.

California Governor Jerry Brown and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon have signed a joint agreement to work together to tackle climate change and "capitalise on the huge potential of the Under2 MoU, the ambitious commitment to bold and decisive climate action covering over one billion people and over a third of the global economy to which both jurisdictions are signatories."