Greenwashing, for the United Nations we can no longer ignore it

Too many promises and few facts. This is the result that emerged from the analyzes carried out by the group of experts of the United Nations on actions to counter the climate crisis of non-state actors, such as companies and banks, presented to Cop27, the climate conference underway in Egypt. A facade ecologism, or greenwashing in English, which is endangering the planet and must be brought under control by binding regulations e verifiable by states and international organizations.

Behind the multitude of promises on climate goals, there are very few concrete actions. According to Catherine McKenna, former Canadian environment minister and chairman of the UN group of experts, most of the zero emission targets for businesses, banks and cities I am alone “empty slogans and proclamations“ that “They raise costs” environmental “that in the end they will all pay“.

Buying and selling permits to emit CO₂ makes more and more

In 2050 they could generate one trillion dollars a year. For this reason, at COP27, the United Nations climate conference in Egypt, the states are aiming to find an agreement to regulate international markets. The challenges open to negotiations

The carbon market

The most serious problem is represented by the so-called credits carboni.e. the buying and selling of permits to emit CO₂ which could become a market by 2050 trillion dollars a year. Emissions Trading Systems (ETS) allow most people large polluters to continue exceeding emissions limits, paying for reforestation projects or supporting technologies such as carbon dioxide capture, but their excessive use is damaging the climate and making exceed the limit of 1.5 degrees of temperature increaseestablished by the Paris agreements.

“Non-state actors cannot buy cheap credit often lacking in integrityinstead of immediately reducing their emissions along their value chain “ we read in report of the United Nations. According to experts, these polluters should be allowed to purchase carbon credits only after having achieved the medium-term objectives of reducing emissions and don’t use them as an alternative to cutting emissions, as is happening all too often.

Having complete and transparent emissions data is proving to be more difficult than expected

They are needed by all states to achieve the Paris agreements and will have to be available from 2024, but things are proceeding slowly. At the climate conference in Egypt, Cop27, the issue will remain out of the negotiations but everyone’s commitment is needed to make progress

A question of transparency

The report also emphasizes how non-state actors should be obligedwith the force of law, to draw up relationships annual on the status of their commitments to zero emissions, providing national authorities and international organizations with reliable and verifiable information. In this way, voluntary emission reduction promises and commitments from large corporations and other non-state actors should be replaced by binding regulations that outline short and medium-term objectives, giving the same companies also the responsibility for emissions from the use of their productsas well as their direct pollution.

Finally, the experts stressed, once again, how necessary it is immediately stop all new mining projectsas well as any financing and investment in fossil energy sources, so as to concretely reduce absolute CO emissions_2.“I urge all actors, including cities, regions, businesses, investors, alliances, countries and regulators, to take these recommendations seriously and implement them with urgency“, declared al Guardian Laurence Tubiana, managing director of the European Climate Foundation.