- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
Climate: Corporate 'net zero' pledges lack credibility
Nearly half the world's biggest companies have pledged to erase their carbon footprints by around mid-century, but only a handful have credible game plans for doing so, climate policy research groups said Monday.
Without tangible action from firms, the Net Zero Stocktake 2023 report warned, capping global warming at tolerable levels will likely remain out of reach.
Barely one degree Celsius of warming to date has made extreme weather more destructive and deadly, and UN climate experts have said the world could breach the Paris treaty limit of 1.5C above the preindustrial benchmark within a decade.
"The big question is whether existing net zero targets will acquire the measures of credibility quickly enough to keep the Paris Agreement's temperature goals within reach," co-author John Lang from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit told AFP.
Taking into account national, regional and corporate pledges, some 90 percent of the global economy has climbed on board the 'net zero' bandwagon, up from 15 percent four years ago.
In business, 929 companies on the Forbes 2000 list have set targets to eliminate their emissions by around 2050, more than twice as many as in December 2020.
But measuring these CO2-purging pledges against the yardstick of half-a-dozen standards for assessing net zero claims shows that almost all fall down badly on the details.
"Most entities that have pledged net zero do not meet minimum requirements for what good net zero looks like," said Lang.
Only four percent of corporate commitments are in line with five "starting line" criteria set out in the UN Race to Zero guidelines, one of the voluntary standards.
These basic benchmarks include setting a specific net zero target; covering greenhouse gases other than CO2, such as methane and nitrous oxide; very limited use of carbon offsets, such as planting trees, instead of emissions reductions; and annual reporting on progress toward both interim and long-term targets.
Arguably no sector is under more pressure to decarbonise than fossil fuel companies, and 75 of the 112 largest of these firms have net zero targets today, 50 percent more than a year ago.
But most of these targets are "largely meaningless," the report said, because they do not include so-called scope three emissions -- downstream impacts such as CO2 released by the burning of the oil, gas or coal.
Overall, barely a third of corporate net zero targets examined included scope three.
- 'No rowing back' -
As pressure mounts, signs of a backlash against net zero commitments has emerged across the corporate landscape.
Last month half-a-dozen members of the Net Zero Insurance Alliance, launched in 2021, backed out of the group, and some large institutional investors have softened their net zero pledges as well.
"People are realising that it's not a fad, and as they turn their attention to the 'how' of net zero we are seeing pushback," said Lang.
"But there's no rowing back from where we are now," he added. "This is now a norm for the corporate world."
Gradually, voluntary compliance schemes will give way to regulations and shifts in market-based incentives, Lang predicted.
Already today, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the United States and the Net Zero Industry Act in the European Union are shifting hundreds of billions of dollars from carbon-polluting to clean energy.
Even the fossil fuel industry is not immune to mounting pressure as decarbonisation of the global economy accelerates.
In 2023, more than $1.7 trillion will be invested in carbon-free energy, compared to $1 trillion going into energy and power from oil, gas and coal, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). For the first time this year, investment in solar power will outstrip that in oil.
And some incumbent energy firms, such Danish multinational Orsted, have successfully transitioned from fossil fuels to renewables.
"Slowly but surely the narrative is changing," said Lang. "I do think we will live to see the day where the social license to operate of fossil fuel companies will be withdrawn."
The NewClimate Institute, Oxford Net Zero, and Driven EnviroLab also contributed to the Net Zero Stocktake 2023 report.
T.Batista--PC