Net Zero commitments are now hitting the mainstream, and the breakneck pace of socializing and making these commitments is unheralded. The speed of adoption for this framework is particularly notable for its ambition and just how darned hard it will be to succeed. Allow me to be brutally honest as the context for why every organization should follow this same path with what might seem like reckless abandon.
The history of US and global failures on climate is well established. In the US, we can look at the Clean Power Plan, Waxman-Markey, McCain-Lieberman and more as prime examples. In the global moment of ‘Build Back Better,’ the US bailed out failing oil and gas companies with $15.2bn in debt purchases and other supports. Indeed, the analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance studied the largest 10 economies and their response to the Covid pandemic and found $1.2 trillion spent on carbon intensive economy supports and only $363bn for climate friendly interventions.
The IPCC has a path for 1.5 but it is viable mostly in mathematical terms. It assumes an immediate peak in emissions globally and a reduction of 8% annually thereafter, and rapid deployment of technology-based emission reductions starting in less than a decade. The traditionally conservative International Energy Agency put a finer point on it in scenarios that said we need no more fossil fuel expansion, and end the development of all new reserves.
The long-term emissions from these buried fields of carbon are completely incompatible with the 1.5°C ceiling that is the objective of a Net Zero 2050 commitment. Yet if you peruse trade press or climate twitter, you can learn all about the new proposed coal mines from Adani, the Cambo oil field developments in the UK, fossil gas terminals and tar sands pipelines (some of which are touted as “Net Zero operations”) all across the US. All of which are being funded by big banks with Net Zero commitments.
Add it all up, as the UN Environment Program just did, and you find that “The world’s governments plan to produce around 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, and 45% more than consistent with 2°C.” The news here: Nothing has changed since previous UN Gap reports.
In the US, the Build Back Better agenda has run head-first into the objections of a Senator deeply invested in and backed by coal and the most polluting US utilities. The proposed victim of fossil fuel opponents to President Biden’s agenda is the Clean Energy Performance Plan, a plan that recent analysis says would account for one-third of the emissions reduction in his plan and is central to decarbonizing the grid in the time frame we are committed to.
Although the Net Zero headlines continue to increase, things just aren’t going that well, or certainly not well enough. 2020 was already 1.19 degrees Celsius warmer than the baseline. Every year we keep pumping gigatons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and will continue to do so even if we actually reach peak emissions right now.
Why then should any philanthropy, manager, owner or business join this Net Zero bandwagon?
For me, the answer is simple.
They should do it, and do it with integrity, because the reason we are in such a dire situation is because every time we have had a chance to do the right thing, we have flinched, delayed, undermined, studied or failed to deliver. That is how we got here and that is why we should all be making hard, consequential decisions and rigorous commitments right now.
This isn’t just about an emissions outcome; it’s about actually centering our decisions in the science and humanitarian obligations that we are all ultimately tethered to. Business-friendly NGOs and think tanks have used every narrative and rationalization in the book to try to get better decisions made through optimism and opportunity. Consequently, we are left with nothing but hard choices that are still the right choices.
So … jump in. The water is warm and getting warmer. Do it with integrity and eyes wide open. Do it with compassion and objectivity about what a climate safe future returns to all of us. And don’t do it with a pile of offsets or greenwashing ESG tricks. This is our moment to get it right. Again.
Ivan Frishberg is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Amalgamated Bank and Confluence Board Member. You can see if they got it right by looking at their climate targets here.
- Ivan Frishberg, Chief Sustainability Officer, Amalgamated Foundation & Confluence Board Member
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