Fortescue has called on all industrial companies to adopt a sense of urgency when it comes to avoiding global warming.
Citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, Fortescue said it fully supports the recommendations made to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
The company plans to make its technology, processes, equipment, green technology and green hydrogen generation capacity available to assist countries and companies to reduce their emissions.
Fortescue is currently working on eliminating its use of fossil fuels through its $US6.2 billion decarbonisation roadmap.
“Any country or company who either ignores or, worse, issues supporting statements and does nothing, must be held responsible for the impending existential threat, which has begun,” Fortescue founder and executive chairman Andrew Forrest said.
“This is essentially the last IPCC report we have while it is still possible to avoid 1.5°C warming. By the time the next report comes out, we will either have achieved what needs to be achieved, or we are treading down the pathway of an unliveable planet.
“There is no part of the planet that will not be changed by our failure to act. Every day counts if we are to halve global emissions by 2030.”
Fortescue subsidiary Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) has recently joined forces with Kenya to develop a major green energy and fertiliser project while also supplying green electricity to Kenya’s grid.
It is just one of the many green projects that FFI has in the pipeline.
“Despite the meltdown in the banking market precipitated by the breakdown of Credit Suisse, Silicon Valley Bank and others, I remind the entire financial community that if their activities are hooked on fossil fuel, they are living in a house of straw,” Forrest said.
“If they instead choose to use this collapse and the IPCC report to rapidly change, they will be the substantial financial institutions of our future.
“Their leadership to utilise this crisis as an opportunity to rapidly change their banking processes and eliminate loans to the fossil fuel sector will be key to their success.”