Energy and Climate Change

We are directly contributing to most of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (sdgs)

• Chemistry enables adequate food supplies, clean water, medical advancements, comfortable living standards, and a healthy environment for a growing population.
• Chemistry creates irreplaceable components for advanced building materials and batteries, wind turbine blades, solar panels, electric and high efficiency vehicles, and lightweight options that improve energy efficiency and reduce GHG emissions. Many chemical products also provide solutions to become more resilient to a changing climate.

We are assessing the potential of chemical solutions to mitigate climate change

• ICCA has commissioned a series of reports and case studies to uncover the most promising pathways to lower GHG emissions using chemistry. The chemical industry presents significant potential towards a low-carbon society in creating innovations with partners throughout the value chains of other sectors.

We are reducing our own GHG emissions as part of Responsible Care^®

The chemical industry aims to:

• Reduce its own emissions by improving its catalytic processes, switching to renewable energy and alternative raw materials; and
• Encourage the use of chemical products that create a net emission reduction along the value chain. Responsible Care has been implemented by 62 chemical associations in nearly 70 economies around the world.

We are building capacity to improve company performance in reducing GHG emissions

• ICCA is helping to strengthen the skills, processes, and resources of companies as they strive to achieve their sustainability goals.
• Our effort includes outreach and assistance to chemical industry representatives in developing countries in the field of Carbon Life Cycle Assessments (cLCA) and methodologies for calculating GHG emissions.

We are engaging the international community

The chemical industry believes that the answer toward tackling climate change is to have:

• Ongoing global and regional dialogues to share experiences and best practices;
• Constructive climate diplomacy; and collaboration between industry, governments, stakeholders and communities. ICCA has participated in UN activities such as the Conference of Parties (COP) climate meetings and the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) sessions on the UN SDGs.

We are advocating for effective climate policies

As per our Climate Policy Statement, ICCA supports policies which:

• Achieve net global GHG reductions and avoid shifting emissions between regions or countries – known as carbon leakage
• Include transparent monitoring, reporting and verification systems (MRV); and
• Establish transparent, predictable, technology-neutral economic signals to facilitate lower GHG emissions. For instance, incentives to support new technologies toward commercialization.