Businesses are crawling on climate action according to international consultants EY.

The company says that its latest EY 2024 Global Climate Action Barometer (Barometer) shows just 41% of businesses have plans in place to manage climate risks;  the majority of businesses have not made a financial commitment to prepare for net zero; and there is a global failure to set long-term commitments on greenhouse gas emissions.

Now in its sixth year, the Barometer looks at the extent to which organizations across the globe are reporting – and acting to mitigate – risks posed by climate change. It scrutinises the efforts of more than 1,400 businesses in 51 countries, across 13 business sectors, by looking at their transition plans and the information they publish based on the 11 recommendations set by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which was established to improve and increase reporting of climate-related financial data.

The report says that although companies are disclosing sustainability information, the quality of that information is only improving slowly indicating that many companies are avoiding sharing detailed information with customers, investors and other stakeholders. Countries and regions with the highest quality disclosure records are the UK (69%), South Korea (62%), Japan (61%), Southern Europe (61%) and Western/Northern Europe (61%), while the Middle East (29%) sits at the bottom of the pack.

Only slightly more than two-fifths of companies (41%) report they have a transition plan in place to help them mitigate the risks of climate change, and while a little more than a fifth (21%) report they do intend to develop one in the future, 38% do not have any intention of doing so. Among the world’s biggest emitters adoption of transition plans is even lower – only 8% in China and just 32% in the US.