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While the number of net-zero pledges from countries, regions,
cities, and companies have continued to rise in recent quarters,
data from Net Zero Tracker (NZT) reveals a divide between the
Global South and North in climate commitments.
In its Stocktake 2022 report, NZT said
128 countries and self-governing territories responsible for 83% of
global GHG emissions have committed to some form of net-zero target
as of June 2022, compared with 124 such entities representing 61%
of emissions in December 2020.
The remaining uncommitted countries tend to be small, low-income
nations in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, often
collectively referred to as the Global South. The Global North
refers to developed countries that are mostly in the northern
hemisphere.
NZT, a project developed by nonprofits Data-Driven EnviroLab,
the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, NewClimate Institute,
and the University of Oxford's Oxford Net Zero, aims to track the
climate pledges from all signatory countries to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, select self-governing territories,
and non-state actors.
A country's development level can often determine its climate
commitment even though the number of net-zero promises from mid-
and low-income nations have increased in recent years, said Takeshi
Kuramochi, a policy researcher at NewClimate Institute.
"For countries where both the population and the economy are
growing rapidly while having limited resources to address
greenhouse gas emissions, it is not surprising that they are more
hesitant to pledge to net-zero emissions by a certain future year,"
Kuramochi told Net-Zero Business Daily by S&P Global
Commodity Insights.
With less access to finance, observers say less developed
countries are at a disadvantage in carrying out decarbonization
projects and building capacity to counter climate change.
At the UN COP15 climate summit in 2009, wealthy nations
committed to jointly delivering $100 billion in climate finance per
year to emerging economies.
But the amount of support reached just $79.6 billion in 2019 and
is only expected to cross the $100-billion threshold in 2023, the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated.
The LDC Group, a bloc of 46 of the poorest and most vulnerable
countries, renewed its call for more funds from developed countries
to mitigate and adapt to climate change impacts at the 5 June
opening of the Bonn Climate Change Conference.
"Countries with much greater responsibility and capabilities
than ours must close the funding gap so that when the impacts of
climate change hit—when houses and hospitals are washed away,
when crops are destroyed, when islands sink, and when whole
communities are displaced—the costs don't land on the already
vulnerable households," LDC Chair Madeleine Diouf Sarr said as
climate negotiators met for the first time since COP26.
Sub-national divide
At the sub-national level, NZT tracks all states and regions in
the 25 countries with the biggest emissions totals and found the
number of those authorities committing to net-zero has risen to 115
from 73 in December 2020.
The project, which also follows all cities with a population
above 500,000, estimates the number of net-zero cities has
increased to 235 from 115 in the same timespan.
With their financial resources and lower share of heavy industry
that emits large amounts of GHGs, analysts said cities can often be
better positioned to embark on a low-carbon transition than other
parts of the society.
"Cities have long played a role in leadership within and beyond
national borders," said Paul McConnell, an executive director for
energy and climate at S&P Global 14 June, adding that a
low-carbon city can attract more people and businesses.
But more than 80% of the state and regional governments and over
60% of the city governments with net-zero promises are in
high-income countries. Among the 1,177 cities in the NZT database,
160 of the 322 cities in OECD countries have committed to net-zero
emissions, while 75 of the 855 cities in non-OECD countries have
done the same.
"Global North has set the majority of sub-national targets,
however, net-zero has not yet spread widely beyond high-income
countries in North America, Europe, and Asia," the stocktaking
report said.
In a statement accompanying the publication of the report
earlier this week, Data-Driven EnviroLab Director Angel Hsu said
there is a "concerning divide between the Global South and Global
North on net-zero."
"The Global North must recommit to delivering the climate
finance and capacity building required for the Global South
countries to strengthen their net-zero commitments," at COP27 in November, Hsu
added.
Corporate pledges lack robustness
Tracking all companies on the Forbes Global 2000 list, NTZ also
finds 702 of the 2,000 largest public firms have made net-zero
commitments as of this month, versus 417 in December 2020.
Of the 702 net-zero companies, 210 are headquartered in the US,
89 in Japan, 57 in the UK, 40 in France, and 33 in Germany. Just 11
of the 265 Chinese companies on the list have committed to net-zero
so far.
"Wealthy nations can … take more action on major emitting
companies that are headquartered there but operating globally and
generating significant emissions in developing countries,"
Kuramochi said. "A significant portion of emissions in developing
countries can be attributed to consumption in wealthy nations."
The report was critical of the pledges' quality in general.
While some scientists have called for a halving of GHG emissions by
2030 to avoid climate catastrophe, about 50% of the 702 companies
with net-zero commitments have yet to set any interim targets.
Just 38% of the companies have included emissions across their
value chains (Scope 3) in their pledges.
"We're seeing a proliferation of companies setting superficial
targets due to growing peer pressure. This trend at least puts more
firms on an escalator towards integrity, but until their targets
improve to reflect the urgency of the climate emergency, they leave
themselves wide open to criticism," Oxford Net Zero Executive
Director Steve Smith said in the statement.
Amid widespread greenwashing concerns, an
increasing number of public-sector and private-sector players have
sought to enhance the scrutiny over non-state entities' climate
pledges.
Climate Action 100+, an investors' initiative that has about 700
signatories with $68 trillion in assets under management, regularly
publishes benchmark assessments for corporate net-zero pledges
based on its criteria. Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity
Initiative focuses on how businesses use carbon offsets to meet
their net-zero targets.
"With the light of scrutiny bringing greater clarity to net-zero
… it's becoming much easier for everyone—from regulators, to
customers, investors, and employees—to see who has made a
public commitment, and how robust that commitment looks," Smith
said.
Posted 14 June 2022 by Max Tingyao Lin, Principal Journalist, Climate and Sustainability
This article was published by S&P Global Commodity Insights and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.