Zero tolerance for net zero greenwashing, says UN
Companies pledging to reach net-zero emissions should not be taken seriously if they keep investing in new fossil fuel supplies, a UN-backed group of experts says.
Companies pledging to reach net-zero emissions should not be taken seriously if they keep investing in new fossil fuel supplies, a UN-backed group of experts says.
In a first step to imposing regulation on a “wild west” of corporate net-zero targets, the group laid out red lines to prevent “dishonest climate accounting”.
“Net zero is entirely incompatible with continued investment in fossil fuels,” the 17 experts said in a report published at the COP27 climate conference on Tuesday.
They said companies trying to eliminate emissions could no longer buy cheap carbon offsets, fail to count all their emissions – such as oil firms counting emissions from rigs and platforms but not from customers burning petrol in cars – or engage in lobbying that undermined government climate policies.
“We must have zero tolerance for net-zero greenwashing,” said UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, who used COP26 in Glasgow last year to commission the report.
There is growing pressure for governments to force universal standards and accounting rules on net-zero targets, with French President Emmanuel Macron and businessman and former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg working together to create a digital data portal where corporate pledges can be interrogated. Recent polling found eight in 10 large businesses across five continents backed regulation of net-zero targets.
“The problem is the criteria and benchmarks for these net-zero commitments have varying levels of rigour and loopholes wide enough to drive a diesel truck through,” Mr Guterres said.
Catherine McKenna, chair of the net-zero expert group, said firms could no longer get away with failure to count all emissions, or rely on targets that reduced the intensity of emissions but not the amount. “You need to cover all your emissions,” she said.
“A lot of companies are only doing a percentage of their emissions; in particular, they’re not doing emissions across their supply chain. And you need to reduce your actual emissions. While intensity can be an important measure, the planet cares about emissions actually going down.”
The former Canadian environment minister said she thought regulation would come quickly in the EU, Britain and the US, but investors and consumers could also challenge companies with a poor record on their net-zero goals. Young workers would refuse to join businesses not taking emissions reductions seriously, while shoppers could be empowered to pick products by greener firms, Ms McKenna said, “(but) it’s really important we move to regulation”.
The group consulted with more than 500 organisations worldwide for the report, which concluded that cheap carbon offsets of the kind employed by some budget airlines should be dropped. Some carbon credits considered “high integrity” could still be used in some circumstances, it added.
A study this year found the net-zero goals set by 25 of the world’s biggest companies did not stack up.
The Times
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