“We must have no tolerance for greenwashing on carbon neutrality,” warned the UN secretary general on Tuesday.
No new investment in fossil fuels, no cheap “offset” of emissions, no deforestation: UN experts on Tuesday drew “red lines” against the greenwashing of private actors who make promises in the air of carbon neutrality.
More and more companies, investors, cities and regions are promising to achieve carbon neutrality by the middle of the century. Commitments often with “loopholes large enough to fit a tank of diesel through”, commented UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, welcoming the work of the group of experts he had launched at the last COP. “We must have no tolerance for greenwashing on carbon neutrality,” he insisted.
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The 18 experts have developed in a few months a manual to assess the degree of credibility of non-state actors who commit to carbon neutrality. A key condition for this credibility is to move away from “environmentally destructive activities”, in particular anything that can lead to deforestation, and gradually move away from fossil fuels responsible for global warming. Cities, regions, financial organizations and companies “cannot claim carbon neutrality while continuing to build or invest in new sources of fossil fuels”, insists the report, which stresses that the two are “incompatible”.
All these commitments must indeed respect the scenarios of the UN climate experts (IPCC) who estimate that to limit global warming to 1.5°C, the use of coal without carbon capture (a large-scale immature technology ) should be completely halted and those of oil and gas reduced by 60% and 70%, respectively, by 2050 compared to 2019 levels.
“Toxic Concealment”
“At a time when so-called carbon-neutral banks are pouring billions into new fossil fuel projects, it is particularly encouraging that the group is putting things right,” reacted Lucie Pinson, of the NGO Reclaim Finance. “Using bogus carbon neutrality commitments to cover massive fossil fuel expansions is reprehensible,” Guterres said. “This attempt at a toxic cover-up could knock the world off the climate cliff. This fraud must end”. “If you are a company in the fossil fuel sector, it is likely that you will have to rethink the heart of your model”, comments on his side a senior UN official, noting that some have started their transition to renewables.
Another sine qua non for a credible objective of carbon neutrality is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible. And not offset them by buying “carbon credits” equivalent to a weight of CO2, by financing for example reforestation projects or the development of renewable energies. “You can’t just buy cheap carbon credits” and which sometimes lack “integrity”, underlines to AFP Catherine McKenna, president of the group of experts. “If you’re hoping for an A, it’s not enough just to come to class. You get an A for working and you can’t pay someone else to do it for you”.
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The report also believes that long-term promises must be accompanied by a specific plan, with targets for each five-year period. They must also cover all the activities of a company: direct activities (scope 1), consumption of electricity and heat (scope 2) but also all indirect emissions upstream and downstream of production, up to the gasoline consumed by motorists for an oil company (scope 3).
Today, around 90% of the world’s GDP is covered by promises of carbon neutrality, according to the Net Action Tracker platform developed by several research centres. But many of these promises “don’t measure up” and others “don’t even provide data”, stresses Catherine McKenna. So the message sent to CEOs or mayors “is clear”, underlines Antonio Guterres: “respect these standards and revise your guidelines now, at the latest by COP28” in a year. He also called on governments to “build a regulatory framework” from these recommendations.
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