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Global firms are increasingly adopting greenhouse gas mitigation targets in response to climate change. These targets serve as a spur for carbon mitigation initiatives, provide guidelines to select appropriate mitigation actions, and set the standards to measure the progress of the mitigation efforts. Despite their important functionalities, firm-level mitigation targets have rarely been studied. In this paper we aim to provide a comparative view on mitigation targets set by global firms across different countries and industrial sectors. The analysis focuses on four dimensions, i.e., adoption, metric, scope, and stringency. We find Japan far leads the other major countries in terms of target adoption, but the targets of Japanese firms are generally less stringent. Canadian firms are laggards in both target adoption and target stringency. The mitigation targets are also considerably uncommon among Australian firms. Firms in developing countries fall behind in target stringency and display a significantly greater divergence than developed countries in sectoral adoption rate. The European Union firms are most likely to cover the emissions in their supply chains in targets. Target stringency has substantially tightened from 2005 to 2012. For all the countries in this study, around 95% of the firm-level targets are more stringent than the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions submitted to the Paris Agreement. Setting mitigation target has a significant positive impact on both the likelihood of investing in renewable energy and the amount of investment in renewable energy. However, there is no evidence that more stringent targets lead to higher investment. These findings point to the most pressing issues with regard to corporate mitigation target-setting that policymakers and corporate management should address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conducted a comparative assessment and a meta-analysis of 48 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction scenarios based on bottom-up energy system analyses for 2030 reported in seven studies published between 2011 and 2015 to obtain insights into the ambition level of Japan's official mitigation target for 2030. First, the scenarios were categorised into four mitigation effort levels and assessed the GHG emissions range (excluding land use, land use change and forestry: LULUCF) as well as key underlying energy-related indicators for each effort level category. Second, a multiple regression equation was derived and applied to project GHG emissions with selected energy-related explanatory variables. Using the derived regression equation, we calculated the levels of low-carbon energy supply and end-use energy savings required to achieve different levels of GHG mitigation. In the first analysis, GHG emissions levels ranged between 16% and 39% below 1990 levels for scenarios that are categorised to have the highest level of mitigation efforts including those consistent with the 2 °C target, with the nuclear power share ranging at 0–29%. The second analysis indicated that regardless of the future nuclear share, GHG emissions reductions of more than 25% from 1990 levels may be considered a minimum effort required in the global efforts towards the 2 °C target. In this view, Japan's official 2030 target (15% below 1990 levels excluding LULUCF) is suggested to be insufficient, especially in light of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement. Strengthened pre-2020 targets and efforts to reduce energy end-use are essential to achieve such mitigation targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]