We have expanded the list of climate policies we assess company engagement with to incorporate land-use related policy, referring to legislative or regulatory measures to enhance and protect ecosystems and land where carbon is being stored. Assessments under this category are currently underweighted in terms of their contribution to the overall company metrics. This weighting will be progressively increased over the next 6 months.
We adjusted the terminology used to describe the queries running down the left-hand side of our scoring matrix and added additional explanatory text to the info-boxes. This has no impact on the scores and methodology. It has been done following user feedback to improve clarity.
The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) is actively lobbying on certain strands of climate change legislation, with mostly positive policy positions. IETA has declared support for GHG emission reduction targets including EU 2030 and 2050 targets, the UK 's 2030 GHG target and reductions under the Clean Power Plan. In 2016, IETA has advocated for countries to raise the ambition of their INDCs proposed under the UN Climate Treaty. Specifically, IETA supports worldwide emissions trading policy and has advocated the inclusion of market provisions in the Paris Agreement. IETA has further advised national governments on effective emissions trading systems whilst supporting linkage of multiple trading systems and in 2016 took legal action in defense of California's cap and trade system. It has also advocated for EU ETS reform; strongly supporting a reduction of surplus emissions allowances to raise the carbon price. Despite this, IETA appears to be less supportive of other strands of climate policy. For example, in Europe IETA appears not to have supported separate, binding targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency in a 2013 consultation and has since reiterated its position in 2015 and 2016, stressing concerns around overlap between EU energy efficiency and renewable energy policies and the EU ETS. IETA supports the decarbonization of the energy mix and promotes the use of emissions trading schemes to achieve this.