26 companies of the top 100 companies scored against this line item. Of the 26 companies, 7 belong to consumer discretionary sector and 5 are diversified. None of the energy and healthcare companies reported net zero programs.

• Carbon neutral operations: Bosch India and Infosys reported that they are already carbon neutral.
• Partially carbon neutral operations: Some companies reported that some of their campuses or manufacturing facilities or businesses are carbon neutral. Example, L&T’s 2 campuses, Marico’s Perundurai facility and Grasim’s VSF business became carbon neutral on scope 1 and 2.
• Carbon neutral product/service: GMR Infrastructure reported that its project - Delhi Airport - is carbon neutral.
• Net Zero targets: A few companies have shared timelines by which they aspire to net zero carbon emissions.

The IPCC report is a hefty and detailed tome. Authored by over 200 people, it covers 14000 research papers. The report is almost 400 pages long, and its summary for policymakers itself is 42 pages long.

The key points raised are:

• It’s getting hotter: Each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850. Since then, the Earth has warmed over a tenth of a degree; it is now approximately 1.1ºC hotter than it was in the second half of the 19th century. Under all five scenarios tested by the report, the Earth will be hotter by more than 1.5 ºC by 2030, much earlier than expected. And it is besting the Paris Agreement reductions.
• Human activity is behind the warming: The link of climate change to human activity has never been as clear as in this report. The report traces this warming to human activity. Consuming fossil fuels has combined with agriculture has skyrocketed GHG (greenhouse gases) emissions.
• The future is hot: Another important aspect is the increase in confidence seen in the report’s estimate of the “equilibrium climate sensitivity”—the amount of warming to be expected due to a doubling of the carbon dioxide level. This report puts the sensitivity at 2.5-4ºC, with the best estimate of 3ºC.
• The Earth is moving towards good behaviour: The report finds that large-scale carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere might indeed be a way of reducing temperatures.
• Methane reduction is the key: Methane is the second most important of the greenhouse gases being emitted in bulk by humankind. The current levels of methane in the atmosphere (like carbon dioxide) are at the highest. But unlike carbon dioxide, atmospheric methane is short-lived. Thus, doubling down on attempts to cut methane emissions from industry and agriculture should be a high priority.
• Sulphates must be removed: sulphates are given off primarily by coal plants and by heavy fuel oils. Unlike greenhouse gases, sulphates reduce warming by reflecting incoming sunlight out into space. Although they reduce warming, they are deadly and have been gradually removed from fuels. The report points towards the need to for sulphate reductions with reductions in methane levels to reduce GHG emissions.