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038 POLICY IMPLEMENTATIONWHAT THE PARIS AGREEMENT MEANS FOR THE PRIVATE SECTORWhen Laurent Fabius brought down that tiny green gavel on December 12, 2015, I understood for the first time in my life what people feel when they are standing in the stadium, about to watch their team win a huge championship. I am no sports fan but in that moment, as the people around me on the floor of the convention centre hall at Le Bourget cheered and embraced each other, I got it. But there was one difference. There was not one team winning in Paris. The entire world won.It should come as no surprise then that such a winning and historic deal is already accelerating progress globally on tackling climate change. For example, new plans set before parliament in Sweden will bring forward its target of achieving net-zero emission, from 2050 to 2045; Justin Trudeau, in his first federal budget as Prime Minister of Canada, plans to spend several billion dollars over the next five years to address climate change and support clean-energy; and the UK has said it will enshrine in law a long-term goal of reducing its carbon emissions to zero, in line with the Paris accord.With so many developments since December, what more can we expect in the coming months and years? The prospect is an exciting one.LOW-CARBON GROWTH For the leading businesses who called on policymakers through CDP to agree on an ambitious climate accord, the question of what the Paris Agreement means and how it will define future progress is an important one. Businesses have been at the forefront of progressive climate action for a long time. The Paris Agreement provides the policy foundation to scale up the kind of low-carbon business approach already taken by many of the world’s most influential companies.Going forward, every business leader should be thinking on how they can grow their business whilst also cutting their environmental impacts in line with the new goals agreed in Paris. Hundreds of investors and companies who have made climate-related commitments through the We Mean Business coalition have begun to act around this, creating new opportunities.Among the most exciting commitments companies are making is the setting of science-based emissions reduction targets. Currently over 150 companies have pledged, through the Science Based Targets initiative, to set emissions-reduction goals that are in line with what science tells us is necessary to limit global warming. Whilst this is a strong beginning, too many businesses are still working to goals that are not in line with climate science. With the Paris Agreement, companies will have greater confidence and support to revise targets to be better aligned with the reality of necessary climate action.THE AGE OF TRANSPARENCYThe enhanced transparency and accountability regime confirmed in the deal may not be new for many leading companies for whom effective, honest communication of their environmental risks and management actions has been essential for some time. However, such practice is more novel at the international scale. The regular submissions of “ AMONG THE MOST EXCITING COMMITMENTS COMPANIES ARE MAKING IS THE SETTING OF SCIENCE-BASED EMISSIONS REDUCTION TARGETS ”PAUL DICKINSON, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, CDP