US tech giants including Microsoft, Apple, and Google are jointly investing a total of $140bn towards the White House initiated effort ‘American Business Act on Climate Pledge’, to battle climate change.
US President Obama has set an ambitious target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by 26-28% until 2025. The US Environmental Protection Agency is also set to issue final rules cutting carbon emissions from US power plants within next week.
Though companies like General Motors, Hathaway Energy, Cargill, and Coca-Cola have joined the initiative none of the companies operating in oil, natural gas or coal sector that are accused of emitting the most CO2 has joined the initiative.
As part of the initiative, Apple has committed to generate 280MW of clean power generation online by the end of 2016.
Google said that it will reduce water consumption, particularly in the drought-ridden western US, while Microsoft said that it will buy 100% renewable energy for the operations of its data centres, offices, labs, and manufacturing facilities.
At the UN Climate Summit last September, US president Obama said: "There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate."
"The American Business Act on Climate Pledge shows that the U.S. private sector, with its history of innovation and ingenuity, is committed to stepping up and doing its part in taking on this global challenge."