net zero

see phased fallback denial --> delay

allows for loophole fuckery? but still target eg Benny P Net Zero Watch

H&K busted on cop 27 egypt

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/un-climate-champions-pr-brunswick-saudi-aramco/

UN climate campaign leaders are taking advice from a PR firm that works extensively for fossil fuel giants – including the world’s biggest oil company, Saudi Aramco.

The international public relations firm Brunswick has helped the UN’s “high-level climate champions” – a small but influential team led by the UK and Egypt, the hosts of COP26 and COP27 – to develop five UN-backed climate policies and campaigns.

One of these campaigns is Race to Zero, which encourages companies to rapidly reduce emissions, with its flagship initiative, Business Ambition for 1.5°C, calling on corporations to help limit global warming to that level.

But while advising the climate champions, and having signed up as a member of Race to Zero, Brunswick also spins for fossil fuel companies developing dozens of new oil and gas prospects.

these developments will make the 1.5°C goal – which requires a complete stop to new oil and gas projects – much harder to attain.

Duncan Meisel, executive director of Clean Creatives, a campaign calling for PR and advertising agencies to boycott fossil fuel companies, told openDemocracy: “Working for oil drillers and fossil fuel power companies makes Brunswick an opponent of the action that UN high-level climate champions are trying to promote.”

PR companies’ role in the climate crisis has been under renewed scrutiny in recent months, after Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, condemned the “massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny”...

Last month, more than 400 scientists called on the PR firm Hill+Knowlton Strategies to drop its fossil fuel clients after openDemocracyrevealed it was also working for the Egyptian presidency of COP27.

Some 636 fossil fuel industry representatives registered to attend COP27, according to research by Global Witness, leading to claims that the conference had been hijacked.

BONUS INTERVIEW: Scientist and YouTuber Simon Clark explains why we've been lied to about net zero. 5 26

POD SAVE UK

https://www.alternet.org/fossil-fuel-2662235056/

https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/01/31/the-long-view-us-proxy-voting-trends-on-es-issues-from-2000-to-2018/

7 23 an no lnx

Inside the fossil fuel industry’s insidious plan to end responsible investing

Jessica Church, Common Dreams and Inequality.org July 06, 2023

In a recent Gallup poll, the vast majority of Americans surveyed said they were not even “somewhat familiar” with the term “ESG.” But on Capitol Hill, Republicans have developed a fixation on the issue, holding not one but two intensely partisan hearings on the topic.

“Republicans Are Losing Their Minds Over ESG” read one headline.

“Anti-ESG talk leads to partisan fireworks” read another.

Now you may be wondering, what the heck is ESG? What’s anti-ESG? What the heck is “woke” capitalism? And why should I care?

What Is ESG?

ESG stands for “Environmental, Social, and Governance,” which are categories of metrics that businesses use to assess performance and risk on a range of issues.To reduce risk and create value over the long term, businesses may seek to reduce carbon emissions (Environmental), improve working conditions for workers through racial equity and other measures (Social), or take steps to bring executive compensation closer in line with the company’s median salary (Governance).

Companies’ practices on ESG metrics can have an impact on future performance, so there is tremendous value in understanding long-term risks associated with environmental, social, and governance factors.

The simple concept that businesses should care about their communities and their workers and govern themselves accordingly is not new. In the 1980s, some companies and banks stopped doing business in South Africa to protest racial Apartheid. In the 1990s, a number of institutional investors divested from the tobacco industry as a way to take a stand against the harmful and deceptive practices of companies like Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds. And in the 2000s and 2010s, support for environmental shareholder proposals grew substantially in response to the worsening climate crisis.

Who’s Against It?

This leads us to the current backlash. “Anti-ESG” efforts, promulgated by long-time conservative organizations like theHeritage Foundation and American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and newly prominent groups like the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, Consumers’ Research, and the State Financial Officers Foundationall have one things in common—connections to conservative big money donors in the oil and gas industry.

“The anti-‘woke investing’ movement was not created by financial experts,” observed environmental reporter Emily Aktin, “It was created by two of the fossil fuel industry’s most notorious climate disinformers.”

The anti-ESG movement is a well-funded and well-organized campaign led by top conservative political operatives.

Big Oil wants to end ESG investing and ESG business practices because they’re at odds with the continued growth of the fossil fuel industry. Big Oil would rather let our planet burn and increase short-term profits than adjust its business practices to stave off the worst of the climate crisis and invest in long-term profits.

Big Oil also wants you to think that this “anti-ESG” movement is organic, that it emerged from the conservative grassroots, but that could not be further from the truth. The anti-ESG movement is a well-funded and well-organized campaign led by top conservative political operatives. I recently corresponded with Meaghan Winter, author of All Politics Is Local, who explained that:

“Ideological donors and their foundations and think tanks have deliberately chosen to push their agendas through obscure-seeming front groups that work incrementally on the state level because they don’t want to call attention to the profound (and very unpopular) changes they are initiating. This strategy is decades-old, it has worked against unions and abortion and more, and the anti-ESG effort is just one of the latest incarnations.”

One shining example of this is the recent House Oversight Subcommittee hearing on ESG, where the majority witnesses (those called by the GOP, because Republicans control the House of Representatives right now) wereMandy Gunasekara from the Independent Women’s Forum, Jason Isaac from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Stephen Moore from the Heritage Foundation. These organizations have a long history of receiving financial support and carrying water for the oil and gas industry, including Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, and Chevron.

Watch Congresswoman Summer Lee lay it out for us, plain and simple.

Why Does This Matter?

While the right wing foments a culture war crusade and attempts to make ESG the next critical race theory (“CRT”), the fear mongering campaign has real-world impacts on investors and companies who are scared of being caught in the backlash. For example, some private companies are now backpedaling on their climate commitments.

To be clear, this is what the funders of this movement want.

In December, Vanguard, the world’s second largest asset management firm, pulled out of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, which was a voluntary industry-led effort to reach net-zero emission targets by 2050. This was a major setback for anyone who cares about the health and shape of our environment, because Vanguard manages roughly $7 trillion in assets. In order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement—less than 1.5°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels—global markets must shift capital away from the fossil fuel industry and toward renewable energy systems.

But this goes beyond the climate crisis. In recent years, workers and shareholders have been demanding more corporate accountability on workplace safety, workers’ freedom of association, data privacy, racial equity, and executive compensation, among other issues that fall into the Social and Governance categories of ESG. The right-wing campaign against ESG is a campaign to roll back these victories.

How Do We Fight Back?

My organization, Take on Wall Street, is organizing with unions, public interest groups, and grassroots groups to fight back against this regressive movement. But it’s not just about playing defense. We also need a forward-looking vision for worker power, climate justice, and racial equity. Watch this space.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

1,300+ scientists urge JPMorgan shareholders to vote for ending new fossil fuel financing ›

How fossil fuel lobbyists are pushing the right-wing campaign against 'woke capitalism': report ›

Fossil fuel lobbyists acting as 'double agents' at institutions fighting against climate change: report ›

‘Net Zero Watch’

In October last year, the UK government announced its strategy for reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.

The same month, the GWPF’s campaigning arm – the similarly-named Global Warming Policy Forum – rebranded itself as Net Zero Watch, a name it continues to use alongside the original moniker.

In a statement announcing the change, Peiser claimed that in a “net zero future you will be poorer and colder” and “that a political backlash is long overdue” in response to the policy.

Net Zero Watch has repeatedly claimed that the cost of living crisis is the result of net-zero policies.In a report published in March, it said that renewable energy is responsible for the crisis and called for the government to reintroduce coal power plants and restart fracking.

Climate policy researchers said that the group is spreading “misinformation and propaganda” about net zero rather than providing analysis.

Net Zero Watch has found allies in Parliament among a group of 20 Tory MPs and Peers, who formed the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, a cadre of backbench Conservative MPs modelled on the European Research Group that has emerged as a staunch critic of Boris Johnson’s net-zero plans.

Net Zero Scrutiny Group members include former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey; Robert Halfon, a former schools minister; and Tory peer Peter Lilley, who is a former trustee of the GWPF.

Craig Mackinlay and Steve Baker, the MPs leading the group, are regularly quoted on press releases from Net Zero Watch and have repeated some of its lines on the economic cost of net zero word-for-word.

In February, Harry Wilkinson, currently head of policy at Net Zero Watch, and Ruth Lea, a former GWPF trustee, began working for Mackinlay as parliamentary advisers. Wilkinson has previously tweeted that “The ‘climate crisis’ is a religious belief, nothing to do with science.”

The GWPF shares its Tufton Street address with a number of anonymously funded think tanks who have become increasingly vocal in their opposition to climate change mitigation policies.

Earlier this year, Nigel Farage announced he was forming a new campaign for a referendum on net zero.

Farage’s financial backers include the private equity billionaire Jeremy Hosking who openDemocracy recently revealed has huge financial interests in fossil fuels.

The GWPF disputed that the Sarah Scaife Foundation has an interest in oil companies, telling openDemocracy: “The wealth that ultimately created the Scaife Foundation was created at the end of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth. It would be ludicrous to suggest that three generations on, it represents an oil company interest.”

Steve Baker MP said: "I understand the GWPF has already given a response to these allegations, which appear to be ridiculous.

It is an extraordinary fact that the same newspapers and commentators who would usually be the first to protest any kind of poverty are wasting the public's time with these attempts to distract from the real issues at hand. It would be better if the political world focused their attention on how our current energy strategy has driven up energy prices and contributed to the terrible cost-of-living crisis that so many are experiencing.”

https://www.desmog.com/**2022/12/16**/heritage-foundation-hosts-uk-climate-science-denier-at-event-opposing-green-energy/

an influential US think tank has hosted a well-known UK climate science denier at an event attacking what one speaker called Europe’s “socialist” net zero policies.

The Heritage Foundation panel event on December 8, called “Lessons for America from Europe’s Green Energy Disaster”, featured Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s main climate science denial group.

The GWPF published two reports this year rejecting climate science on the greenhouse effect. Its campaign arm Net Zero Watch, of which Peiser is also director, in October called for “a new fleet of coal fired power stations”.

The event is the latest example of UK and US groups working together to oppose climate action. Other links across the Atlantic include the Atlas Network, a fossil fuel-linked US think tank that works with UK libertarians, to the GWPF receiving money from its US “Friends of GWPF” fundraising arm.

Peiser used the event, which was streamed online, to claim that the energy crisis is caused by “a dogmatic prioritization” of renewable energy over alternatives like “shale gas or nuclear”.

According to the International Energy Agency, however, the energy crisis is caused by the high wholesale cost of gas and fuelled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Heritage Foundation presents itself as a mainstream think tank and has influenced several Republican US administrations. However, along with Peiser, this week’s event featured a number of links to climate science denial.

Fossil Fuel Links

The event’s chair Diana Furchtgott-Roth – who is director of Heritage’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment – wrote an article for Forbes last month which argued that the West should encourage “all countries” to use “natural gas, coal, and nuclear” to help the poor.

The article also cast doubt on climate science, suggesting “some research shows little change” in extreme weather, downplayed sea-level rises, adding: “Climate change is going on, as it has for millennia.”

In 2019, Furchtgott-Roth received $227,304 from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a think tank which received more than $3 million from oil giant Koch Industries’ charitable arm Koch Foundations, according to a Greenpeace investigation.

The panel’s other speaker was Nile Gardiner, director of Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, who said: “I do think the British government needs to rethink the whole green energy agenda. It’s not a conservative agenda, in fact it’s a socialist agenda.”

He said: “I think net zero has become basically a form of religion, and anyone who questions the dogma on this immediately is accused of being a heretic.”

Climate Deniers

Gardiner also repeatedly endorsed calls for a Brexit-style referendum on the UK’s net zero policies, an idea which has been pushed by climate science denial groups.

Gardiner cited a YouGov survey commissioned by CAR26, whose director Lois Perry said in August: “I do not believe that man-made climate change is a thing.” In November 2021, Perry spread the conspiracy theory that global warming is a “con” by “elites” to make people poor and hungry.

He also argued that a “net zero referendum” was justified due to what he called the “vast sum of public money” involved in cutting emissions to net zero. The UK’s net zero target will cost less than 1 percent of GDP per year by 2035, according to the government’s advisory Climate Change Committee.

The economic policies of Liz Truss received high praise from Gardiner.He stated her “overall approach” of cutting taxes was “absolutely right”, adding that she was brought down by “her U-turn over the issue of [abolishing] the top rate of tax”. Truss’s mini-budget cost the UK economy £30 billion, according to analysis by the independent Resolution Foundation.

The Heritage Foundation event was attended by Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has received funding from ExxonMobil. Ebell was tapped by Donald Trump’s team to lead its transition for the Environmental Protection Agency in 2016.

report

https://www.commondreams.org/news**/2022/03**/30/despite-splashy-net-zero-vows-big-banks-dumping-trillions-fossil-fuels

despite 'Splashy' Net-Zero Vows, Big Banks Dumping Trillions Into Fossil Fuels

"With Wall Street banks leading the charge, these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all."

JAKE JOHNSON

March 30, 2022

Flouting their public vows to put themselves and their clients on a path to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the world's 60 largest private banks have provided a total of $4.6 trillion in financing for the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016.

That's according to the latest edition of :{Banking on Climate Chaos:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, an annual report that tracks the banking industry's funding of oil and gas initiatives that are threatening global hopes of reining in carbon pollution and averting climate disaster.

In 2021 alone, the report finds, the world's biggest private-sector banks financed oil and gas to the tune of $742 billion. That year, the 60 banks featured in the new analysis poured $185.5 billion into the 100 companies doing the most to expand the fossil-fuel sector worldwide through offshore drilling, fracking, coal mining, liquefied natural gas infrastructure, and more. Authored by Oil Change International, the Rainforest Action Network, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and other groups and endorsed by hundreds of organizations from around the world, the report published Wednesday spotlights the marked contrast between banks' public commitments to net-zero emissions targets and their actions, which reflect a continued stake in fossil fuel development.

The worst offenders in the banking industry, according to the report, are the U.S. financial behemoths JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America,which together accounted for 25% of all fossil fuel financing identified over the past six years.

The report highlights a number of specific projects, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America), drilling in offshore Guyana (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America), and the Line 3 Pipeline (funded by TD, Scotiabank, and the Bank of Montreal), efforts that have drawn fierce resistance from Indigenous communities.

"Indigenous peoples have long been leading the fight for the sacredness of the land, water, and Earth," Mea Johnson, divestment campaign coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a statement Wednesday. "Mother Earth has always given us what we need to thrive. We will not back down until our natural balance is restored and anyone helping fund the extractive destruction of our communities will be held accountable."

Alison Kirsch, research and policy manager at the Rainforest Action Network, added that "any further expansion of fossil fuels risks locking humanity into generations of climate catastrophe, yet the top fossil clients of the world's largest banks are still being showered with tens of billions of dollars even as they actively expand drilling, mining, fracking, and other fossil fuel development unabated."

"With Wall Street banks leading the charge," Kirsch added, "these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all and must immediately end their support of any further fossil fuel infrastructure expansion."

The banks' financing decisions fly in the face of their own pledges to bring their policies into line with critical climate goals, such as achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a benchmark that 44 of the 60 banks profiled in the new report have backed.

"But global banks have massively supported the companies doing the most to open new oil and gas fields," notes the new report. "Banks with net-zero commitments last year... financed the top 20 upstream oil and gas expansion companies, potentially helping to lock the planet into decades of climate-warming emissions." According to the International Energy Agency, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 would mean ensuring "no new oil and gas fields."

Adele Shraiman, a representative for theSierra Club's Fossil-Free Finance campaign, said Wednesday that the analysis "makes it clear that banks must clean up their act and stop funding the expansion of dirty fossil fuel projects like fracked gas exports, tar sands pipelines, and offshore drilling in order to align with what the science demands and what their own commitments require."

"Despite their splashy climate pledges, big banks have largely continued with business-as-usual and actually increased their overall fossil fuel financing since the Paris Agreement," said Shraiman. "As we look ahead to shareholder season, we'll be keeping up the pressure on the banks and their investors to take these critical reforms seriously and stop bankrolling the fossil fuel industry's reckless expansion plans."

2/3/22 oversight :

4 BP, Press Release: From International Oil Company to Integrated Energy Company: BP Sets Out Strategy for Decade of Delivery Towards Net Zero Ambition (Aug. 4, 2020) (online at www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/news-and-insights/press-releases/frominternational-oil-company-to-integrated-energy-company.pdf); Chevron, Press Release: Chevron Sets Net Zero Aspiration and New GHG Intensity Target (Oct. 11, 2021) (online at www.chevron.com/stories/chevron-sets-netzero-aspiration-and-new-ghg-intensity-target); ExxonMobil, Press Release: ExxonMobil Announces Ambition for Net Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2050 (Jan. 18, 2022) (online at https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/News/Newsroom/News-releases/2022/0118_ExxonMobil-announces-ambitionfor-net-zero-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-2050); Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Shell Energy Transition Strategy (2021) (online at www.shell.com/promos/energy-and-innovation/shell-energy-transitionstrategy/_jcr_content.stream/1618407326759/7c3d5b317351891d2383b3e9f1e511997e516639/shell-energytransition-strategy-2021.pdf). 5 As More Companies Make Net-Zero Pledges, Some Aren’t as Good as They Sound, Time (Nov. 15, 2021) (online at https://time.com/6117635/companies-net-zero-greenwash/)

BS scam

https://payupclimatepolluters.org/blog/shell-oil-gretchen-watkins

...Public reporting has shown that Shell knew about the dangers posed by its fossil fuel products for decades, but engaged in a widespread campaign of deception to protect its profits

Shell now faces lawsuits from 20 states and municipalities that are seeking to hold the corporation accountable for lying about its products’ role in the climate crisis.

The American people deserve answers, and as Shell’s President, Watkins must testify. Here is just some of the evidence that members of the House Oversight Committee should ask her to explain:

Shell Knew About the Dangers of Climate Change as Early as the 1980s

In 1988, Shell prepared a confidential report on climate change, concluding that the impacts “may be the greatest in recorded history” and warning that waiting to act until warming is detectable could be “too late to take effective countermeasures to reduce the effects or even to stabilize the situation.”
In 1998, Shell predicted a potential scenario around the year 2010 in which “a series of violent storms causes extensive damage to the eastern coast of the US” prompting environmental groups sue “fossil-fuel companies on the grounds of neglecting what scientists (including their own) have been saying for years: that something must be done.”

Shell Opposed Climate Action and Publicly Denied the Threat While Preparing Its Own Assets for a Warming Globe

In 1984, Shell received a patent for equipment to drill in areas of the Arctic that would only become accessible as the region warmed.
In 1989, the company spent more than $16 million to raise an offshore oil platform to account for rising seas and stronger storms from climate change.
While Shell protected its own assets in the face of climate change, the company argued against public policies to curb emissions, calling them “premature.”

Shell Continues to Expand Drilling and Refining While Falsely Depicting Itself as Committed to Climate Solutions

Shell pledged in 1999 to pursue renewable energy because “action needs to be taken now” to address climate change, but between 2010 and 2018, Shell invested just 1.3% of its capital expenditures in low-carbon projects. For comparison, Shell**spent**$1.7 billion on exploring for new fossil fuels in 2020, 24 times the $70 million it spent on carbon capture technology and 19 times the $90 million it spent on nature-based projects.
In 2016, Shell released its first “net-zero” plan with a substantial marketing strategy, but buried in the footnotes was the disclaimer “we have no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio over our investment horizon of 10–20 years.”
After Shell introduced its new net-zero target in 2020, they noted again, “It is important to note that as of February 11, 2021, Shell’s operating plans and budgets do not reflect Shell’s Net-Zero Emissions target… ”
As of October 2021, the company’s Powering Progress strategy outline still includes the legal disclaimer, “Shell’s operating plans, outlooks, budgets and pricing assumptions do not reflect our net-zero emissions target.”

Shell Says Consumers Are Responsible For Lowering Emissions

While Shell claims credit for being the first oil major to report and develop a plan to reduce so-called scope 3 emissions (from the burning of the fuels they produce and sell) to net-zero, a closer reading of the plan reveals that it requires that customers “themselves take action on the emissions created by their use of our energy products.” Legal disclaimers on their net-zero communications reinforce that end-use emissions from the products they sell are their customer’s responsibility, stating, “The use of the term Shell's "Net Carbon Footprint" is for convenience only and not intended to suggest these emissions are those of Shell or its subsidiaries.”
:{:{After a Dutch court ordered Shell to reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030, including scope 3, Shell’s CEO } the idea that the company should be responsible for its customers’ emissions and said the company will appeal the ruling}::{.}:

Shell’s Net Zero Nature-Based Plans Are Astonishingly Unrealistic

Shell’s latest net-zero plan requires the company to use nature-based solutions to offset 120 million tons of CO2 per year by 2030. Doing so will require “planting forests the size of Spain,” according to the company’s own estimates—or roughly one tenth of the land available for forest planting in the entire world. In the company’s most ambitious low carbon scenario, Sky, the company would need to plant a forest approaching the size of Brazil. To date the company has not described how it would accomplish such massive offsets or when they would start.

good discussion

https://www.climateone.org/audio/corporate-net-zero-pledges-ambitious-or-empty-promises

january 21st, 2022

One-fifth of the world's 2000 largest publicly traded firms have committed to net zero targets. Critics argue that such pledges are mere greenwashing, and even if pledges are fulfilled, the balance sheets usually utilize carbon offsets, which can be of questionable quality and accountability. Proponents of corporate net zero pledges say we’ll never get to net zero emissions without corporate action, and pledges represent legitimate ramping up of ambition and commitment. How can consumers, investors and policy leaders determine if these pledges are genuine attempts at hitting net zero goals? And is it possible for third party auditors to hold companies accountable?

Head of Corporations and Supply Chains for CDP North America Simon Fischweicher, CNBC Reporter Kristina Partsinevelos, and Global Lead for Environmental Sustainability at Cisco Systems Darrel Stickler discuss the actions corporations are taking and how meaningful they are.

Partsinevelos is skeptical that offsets used in the accounting, and the metrics by which they are measured, are sufficient.

“What stops a guy that owns a big forest to sell his forest five times to different companies and just say, oh, I’m gonna keep these trees going for you or else they would have been cut down,” she says.

Darrel Stickler believes the big changes required are only possible through big business adaptation:“I tell people hey listen, if you want to hug trees go work for a nonprofit. If you want to take on the challenge of figuring out how to fit sustainability profitably into business, come work for a big company.”

Companies are increasingly utilizing ESGs – environmental, social, and governance standards – to assess how well they are doing in these areas.

Simon Fischweicher tells us about the STOXX, a climate change leadership index.

“It actually uses CDP data to create several ESG-focused industries. And one in particular is the climate change leadership index that actually map CDP’s A-list and over a five-year period outperformed its global benchmark, which was a sort of global index about 1800 companies by 5.4%. Correlation, causation, can't say for sure and I do think the companies that tend to do well on CDP disclosure A-list companies tend to be well-managed businesses who are thinking about all elements of their business and managing those well. But I think it does send that good signal to the market that if you're investing in companies that are managing ESG issues at the top of their class, they are likely to be managing across the business as well.”

In 2019, 21% of Australia's forest burned in a single summer, and an estimated 3 billion animals were killed. For Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian, witnessing this devastation was both heartbreaking and galvanizing.

“You sort of think about these things like which fire is happening a long way away from you and it was like right up in, you know, Sydney the center of the city. And then as it spread to Mallacoota in the coastline area it sort of went through it sort of four, five different megafires that formed. If you haven’t seen the footage of the residents sort of fleeing to the beach and just the red wall behind them and they all got in boats and watched. It was just staggering to watch for anyone to watch. So, it’s very, very hard to see.”

He also discusses how the companies he’s involved with handle climate issues.

“I’d argue we are probably our hardest critics, it’s not a PR exercise to try to tell people how good we are. Trying to be as honest as possible and tell ourselves and the world where we’re actually at.”

Anti-Net Zero Campaign

The poll comes as opponents of climate action have been calling for a referendum on the government’s net zero policy ahead of the UN COP26 climate summit the UK is hosting in Glasgow.

Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath called for a referendum in his column last week, followed by former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who wrote in the paper on Monday that “there is a case to be made that if the political elite refuse to engage, a referendum on net zero might be necessary”.

The Telegraph has a long history of casting doubt on climate science and opposing action to cut emissions, with a study published in August finding that the paper’s coverage of climate change between 2005 and 2019 was “well behind the curve” in terms of scientific accuracy.

Former Brexit Minister Steve Baker appeared to back the idea of a net zero referendum in a BBC interview yesterday ahead of the government’s spending review.

Sean Buchan, researcher and partnerships manager at Stop Funding Heat, said: “The timing of this new campaign is not a coincidence. As the world’s leaders enter the most important climate talks in five years – perhaps ever – fringe groups will inevitably try to derail the proceedings.

“That The Telegraph has platformed this campaign’s toxic narrative is no surprise. The Telegraph already has a lamentable track record on climate science, but this will continue to put their advertisers in an awkward position. For example, Sainsburys, who are funding the Telegraph while promoting themselves as a ‘Principal Partner’ of COP26.”

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/12/11/10-myths-net-zero-targets-carbon-offsetting-busted/

no lnx

10 myths about net zero targets and carbon offsetting, busted

Published on 11/12/2020,

Comment: Carbon neutrality targets are often not as ambitious as they sound, relying on problematic carbon offsets and unproven technologies

By 41 scientists

The idea of carbon offsetting, which underpins so-called net zero targets, is founded on a number of myths.

In many cases, offsetting relies on capturing carbon in vegetation and soils. Such capacity is however limited and is needed to store carbon dioxide that we have already emitted.

Assumptions of future technologies and targets decades ahead delay immediate action. Countries and corporations must shift focus from distant net zero targets to real emissions reductions now.

The impacts of the climate crisis are becoming increasingly severe, everywhere. We are experiencing heat waves, floods, droughts, forest fires and sea level rise as a result of global heating. The average global temperature is rising at an unprecedented rate, rapidly diminishing the prospect of keeping global warming below 1.5C and with increasing risks of crossing irreversible tipping points.

In the face of growing demands for action, many countries and companies are making promises and setting targets to reach “net zero” emissions or “carbon neutrality”. These often sound ambitious and may even give the impression that the world is awakening and ready to take on the climate crisis.

Parisversaire climate ambition summit: who’s in and who’s out

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In practice, however, net zero targets several decades into the future shift our focus away from the immediate and unprecedented emissions reductions needed. Net zero targets are generally premised on the assumption that fossil fuel emissions can be compensated for by carbon offsetting and unproven future technologies for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But offsetting does not cancel out our emissions – yet action to do so is immediately needed.

There are a number of myths about net zero targets and carbon offsetting that must be dispelled. By revealing them, we aim to empower people, so that they can pressure governments and companies to create real solutions, here and now:

Myth 1: Net zero by 2050 is sufficient to solve the climate crisis. Misleading.

Major and unprecedented reductions in emissions are needed now. Otherwise, our current high emissions will consume the small remaining global carbon budget within just a few years. Net zero targets typically assume that it will be possible to deliver vast amounts of “negative emissions”, meaning removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through storage in vegetation, soils and rocks. However, deployment of the technologies needed for negative emissions at the required scale remains unproven, and should not replace real emissions reductions today.

Myth 2: We can compensate for fossil fuel emissions using so-called “nature-based solutions” (such as carbon sequestration in vegetation and soils). Misleading.

Fossil fuels are part of the slow carbon cycle (see fact box). Nature-based solutions are part of the fast, biological carbon cycle, meaning that carbon storage is not permanent. For example, carbon stored in trees can be released again by forest fires. Fossil emissions happen today, while their uptake in trees and soils takes much longer. The overall capacity of nature-based solutions is also limited, and is anyway needed to help remove the carbon dioxide that we have already released into the atmosphere.

The Carbon Cycle

The carbon cycle has two parts: one fast cycle whereby carbon circulates between the atmosphere, land and seas, and one slow cycle whereby carbon circulates between the atmosphere and the rocks which make up Earth’s interior.

Fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) come from rocks (part of the slow cycle). Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning are today 80 times larger than the natural flow of carbon from Earth’s interior (via volcanoes). Since the return of carbon to Earth’s interior takes millions of years, about half of the emitted carbon remains in the atmosphere for a long time and contributes to global warming.

Myth 3: Net zero targets as well as carbon offsetting increase the incentives to reduce emissions because emissions are allocated a cost. Misleading.

The incentive decreases as long as it is financially more advantageous and socially acceptable to buy low-cost carbon offsets from abroad than it is to reduce emissions at home. Promises of future negative emissions also reduce the incentive to cut carbon emissions now, as their costs in decades to come are heavily discounted.

Myth 4: Carbon offsetting in low-income countries must increase to meet the Paris agreement. Misleading.

Low-income countries have also established climate targets in connection with the Paris Agreement. They will need all the emissions reductions that can be achieved in their own country to deliver on their own climate targets. There is no remaining carbon budget for wealthy high-emitting nations to pass the burden for cutting their emissions on to low-income nations.

Myth 5: Funding renewable energy projects is a good way to compensate for fossil fuel emissions. Problematic.

Expansion of renewable energy in growing economies is crucial, but often only adds to, rather than replaces the fossil fuels in the energy mix. Because renewable energy is now often cheaper than fossil energy, these investments would likely have happened anyway, and should therefore not be counted as offsets. Actors in high-income countries should rather finance renewable energy expansion as a form of climate investment (as opposed to offsetting).

Myth 6: Technological solutions for carbon dioxide removal will solve the problem. Overly optimistic.

Technologies are being developed but they are expensive, energy intensive, risky, and their deployment at scale is unproven. It is irresponsible to base net zero targets on the assumption that uncertain future technologies will compensate for present day emissions.

Myth 7: Tree plantations capture more carbon than leaving old forests undisturbed. Misleading.

Old forests can contain centuries worth of carbon, captured in trees and soils, and can continue to capture carbon for hundreds of years. It is better to cut fewer trees, so that the carbon already stored is not released. The carbon released by felled trees can take a hundred years or more to be recaptured by new trees. We do not have that time.

Myth 8: Planting trees in the tropics is a cost-effective win-win solution for both nature and local communities. Oversimplified.

There are trade-offs between managing forests for cost-efficient carbon capture and for meeting the needs of nature and local communities. Planting trees with carbon capture as the main goal threatens the rights, cultures, and food security of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. These risks, as well as threats to biodiversity, increase as such projects multiply.

Myth 9: Each ton of carbon dioxide is the same and can be treated interchangeably. False.

Carbon dioxide removal tomorrow cannot compensate for emissions today. Emissions from luxury consumption should not be considered equal to emissions from essential food production. Storage of carbon in plants and soils cannot compensate for emissions of fossil carbon (see fact box).

Myth 10: Products and travel can be “climate neutral” or even “climate positive”. False.

Products and travel that are sold as “climate neutral” or “climate positive” due to offsetting, do still have a carbon footprint. Such marketing is misleading and may even lead to more emissions as the offsetting incentivises increased consumption. We contribute more to climate solutions by consuming and travelling less.

Climate change poses existential threats to people, nations, children and to vulnerable groups all over the world. Unprecedented, rapid and sustained emissions reductions, starting here and now, are essential for tackling the climate crisis and living up to the commitments in the Paris Agreement:

We must shift focus from mid-century net-zero targets to immediate, real emissions reductions in our own high-income countries. Reductions of at least 10% per year are needed. This massive transformation of our societies is our only way to fulfil the Paris agreement without relying on risky and unproven, large-scale deployment of negative emission technologies.

We in high-income countries, in addition to maximizing emissions reductions at home, must hugely increase climate finance contributions to low-income countries. The countries that are least responsible yet most vulnerable to the climate crisis must be supported in their efforts to adapt and transform to zero carbon societies, as part of the climate debt they are owed.

We must reject offsetting between high- and low-income countries and replace it with climate financing based on scientific evidence, a limited carbon budget and global climate justice.

We must define separate targets for negative emissions and emissions reductions. It is essential that socially and environmentally appropriate negative emissions are undertaken as climate investments or climate financing, not as carbon offsets.

We must stop marketing products as being “climate neutral” or “climate positive”.

We must stop extracting and using fossil fuels, the primary cause of the climate crisis. As well as real-zero targets, we need an international treaty for the termination of fossil fuel production.

Authors

Alasdair Skelton, Professor of Geochemistry & Petrology, Stockholm University

Alice Larkin, Professor of Climate Science & Energy Policy, Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester

Andrew Ringsmuth, Researcher in Complex Systems & Sustainability, Complexity Science Hub Vienna

Caroline Greiser, Researcher in Ecology, Stockholm University

David Fopp, Senior Lecturer, Youth Studies, Stockholm University

Duncan McLaren, Professor of Cultural Political Ecology, Lancaster University

Doreen Stabinsky, Professor of Global Environmental Politics, College of the Atlantic,

Erik Huss, Geographer & Glaciologist, CEO Husstainability

Flora Hajdu, Associate Professor of Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Greg Marsden, Professor of Transport Governance, University of Leeds.

Hanne Svarstad, Professor of Development Studies, Oslo Metropolitan University

Henrik Lagerlund, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, Stockholm University

Isak Stoddard, PhD student in Natural Resources & Sustainable Development, Uppsala University

James Dyke, Assistant Director, Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter

Jens Friis Lund, Professor of Political Ecology, University of Copenhagen

Jillian Anable, Professor of Transport & Energy, University of Leeds

Joanna Haigh, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London

Judith Nora Hardt, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Change & Security, Franco-German Centre for Social Science Research, Berlin

Julia Steinberger, Professor of Social Ecology & Ecological Economics, University of Lausanne

Kate Dooley, Research Fellow, Climate & Energy College, University of Melbourne

Kathleen McAfee, Professor of International Relations, San Francisco State University

Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy & Climate Change, Uppsala University and the University of Manchester

Klara Fischer, Associate Professor of Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Linda Engström, Researcher in Rural Development & Policy, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Magnuz Engardt, Reader in Meteorology, Researchers Desk

Maria Johansson, PhD in Fire Ecology, Researchers Desk

Maria Wolrath Söderberg, Researcher in Rhetoric & Climate Communication, Södertörn University

Mats Björk, Professor of Marine Plant Physiology, Stockholm University

Niclas Hällström, Environment and Development Studies, WhatNext?

Nils Markusson, Senior Lecturer in the Politics of Environmental Technology, Lancaster University

Paul Glantz, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Stockholm University

Peter Newell, Professor of International Relations, University of Sussex

Richard D. Pancost, Professor of Biogeochemistry, University of Bristol

Sarah Milne, Senior Lecturer in Environment and Development, Australian National University

Stephen Woroniecki, Researcher of Sustainability Science, Linköping University

Stig-Olof Holm, Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Umeå University

Stuart Capstick, Deputy Director, Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations, Cardiff University

Svetlana Gross, PhD student in Business Administration, Stockholm School of Economics

Sören Andersson, Sustainability Advisor, thefuture

Tor A. Benjaminsen, Professor of International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Wim Carton, Assistant Professor of Sustainability Science, Lund University

The article was initiated by members of www.ResearchersDesk.se and is available in Swedish at Dagens Nyheter where it was first published.

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