13. Climate Action

SDG 13. Climate Action

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*

Targets**

13.1 Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries
13.2 Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning
13.3 Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning

Key insights

• Southeast Asia is one of the regions in the world that are most vulnerable to climate change: Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam are among the 10 countries worldwide most affected by climate change-related risks, and Thailand and Cambodia are in the global top 20.¹
• The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) signed an agreement with ASEAN in late 2018 to support governments in the region in the transition towards sustainable energy and the reduction of carbon emissions. IRENA estimates that ASEAN’s target of 23% primary energy being derived from renewable energy sources by 2025 will require investments of US$27 billion annually.²

Business actions***

1. Ensure climate resilience of company and supply chain operations, and the communities surrounding them
2. Substantially reduce emissions associated with company and supply chain operations, in alignment with climate science
3. Shift to a portfolio of goods and services that have, and promote, negligible emissions from use
4. Promote climate conscious behavior and build capacity for climate action

Example

• A Swiss insurance company implemented solutions to help make communities in Indonesia and elsewhere more resilient towards flooding, increasing the safety of at risk communities while improving the firm’s methodology for determining insurance premiums.³
• A Singapore-based real estate operating company has been ranked among the top 100 most sustainable companies in the world for 10 consecutive years as well as among the globally leading corporations concerning climate change because of its strategic management of environmental, but also social and governance (ESG) issues across the organisation.⁴

Thought Leadership

Feeling the heat? Companies are under pressure on climate change and need to do more

Find out why companies need to act on climate change and how they can do more.

Asia Pacific CFO Vision 2019: Sustainability and Climate Change

Find out how sustainability and climate change are forcing many industries to augment themselves in lieu of this age-old issue.

Deloitte Sustainability: Circular economy potential for climate change mitigation

Find out how the circular economy is becoming an essential factor for decision makers in the fight against climate change.

Deloitte Resources 2019 Study
Energy management: Balancing climate, cost, and choice

Find out about businesses’ concerns over climate change and reducing carbon footprints.

*Acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.
** All targets for SDG 1 to 17 have been derived from the United Nations Statistics Division (2018), from: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/indicators-list/
*** All business actions for SDG 1 to 17 have been derived from the United Nations Global Compact (2017), from: https://www.unglobalcompact.org/library/5461
1 Germanwatch (2018), from: https://www.germanwatch.org/sites/germanwatch.org/files/Global%20Climate%20Risk%20Index%202019_2.pdf
2 IRENA (2018), from: https://www.irena.org/newsroom/pressreleases/2018/Oct/IRENA-Signs-Partnership-with-Southeast-Asian-Countries-as-Region-Looks-to-Scale-Up-Renewable-Energy
3 Zurich Insurance Group (NA), from: https://www.zurich.com/en/sustainability/flood-resilience/collaborationwith-ifrc
4 CDL (2019), from: http://www.cdlsustainability.com/