Carbon neutrality goals are useless if not backed by action, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday, stressing that the world cannot “afford any more greenwashing”.
“Commitments to net zero are worth zero without the plans, policies and actions to back it up,” he said in a video message marking the release of an annual assessment by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on progress towards commitments made by signatories of the 2015 Paris climate deal.
“Global and national climate commitments are falling pitifully short,” Guterres said, less than two weeks before the start of the UN COP27 climate conference in Egypt.
“In other words, we are headed for a global catastrophe.”
Dozens of governments as well as thousands of companies have announced carbon-neutral targets, but many are suspected or even openly accused of not delivering on their commitments. Critics have branded many corporate declarations in particular as “greenwashing”.
The UNEP report showed that the current climate pledges made by countries would leave the world on track to heat by as much as 2.6 degrees Celsius in this century.
The agency’s Emissions Gap Report 2022 warned that emissions must fall by 45% in this decade alone to limit disastrous heating.
The report found that updated national promises since last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow would only shave less than one percent off global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
“It’s another year squandered in terms of actually doing something about the problem,” Anne Olhoff, the lead author of the report, told AFP.
“That’s not to say that all nations have not taken this seriously. But from a global perspective it’s definitely very far from adequate.”
The Emissions Gap report examines the difference between the carbon dioxide pollution that will be released under countries’ decarbonisation plans and what science says is needed to keep the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to between 1.5C and 2C from pre-industrial levels.
The report found that in order for temperatures to be capped at 2C, emissions would need to fall 30% faster by 2030 than envisioned under countries’ most up-to-date plans.
To reach the 1.5C target, the gap is 45%.
‘Missed opportunity’
The UNEP report said that emissions reductions in 2020 were roughly in line with what is needed every year this decade to stay on track for 1.5C, with carbon pollution falling more than seven percent largely due to Covid lockdowns and travel restrictions.
However, it said that 2021 could end up being the highest on record for greenhouse gas emissions — some 52.8 billion tonnes — as countries power on with their fossil-fuelled pandemic recoveries.
“We see a full bounce-back in emissions after Covid,” said Olhoff. “It’s a missed opportunity in terms of utilising these unprecedented recovery funds to accelerate a green transition.”
UNEP said that while the switch to renewables in the power sector was accelerating, several industries were lagging behind in the push towards net-zero emissions.
For example in the food sector, responsible for around a third of emissions, dietary changes and cutting food loss could help reduce the sector’s footprint by more than 30% by 2050.
