While the number of companies, cities, and regions with net zero targets continues to increase, more than 40% are yet to set targets according to the Net Zero Tracker project.
The project found that 26% of the states and regions it tracks have net zero targets, collectively covering a population of 2.2 billion. It found that 23% of major cities have set net zero targets; most of these are in ‘high income’ countries while only 11% of the cities in lower income countries have such targets. Nearly 60% of the 1,977 companies that the project tracks have set net zero targets.
Thomas Hale, Professor of Public Policy at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, who co-led the report, warned: “Major companies that have yet to set a net zero target are a time bomb for their employees and investors and a mounting financial risk for the economy overall—as well as the planet we all live on.”
Some bright spots of progress include India, where 14 of the 20 regions with a net zero target will reach it earlier than India’s national 2070 target. In the US, 18 states have set net zero targets, five of which are set to reach theirs earlier than that set by the federal government of 2050. When it came to companies, only 61 of those tracked met all the minimum levels of integrity as defined by the project in its annual assessment
Steve Smith, Executive Director at Oxford Net Zero, said: 'It’s two years since the UN Secretary General launched a report into net zero pledges, saying: ‘we must have zero tolerance for net-zero greenwashing.’ And yet our findings show barely any improvements.”
A separate report from consultancy PwC suggests there has been a “troubling stall” in global efforts to decouple economic growth from carbon emissions. PwC’s Net Zero Economy Index found that a year-on-year decarbonisation rate of 20.4% is now required to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
The consultancy firm noted that this means the world must decarbonise at a rate twenty times faster than it achieved last year - 1.02%. Since 2000, no G20 country has achieved a decarbonisation rate of more than 11.5% in a single year (France managed -11.08% in 2014).
Even limiting warming to 2°C - the lowest end of the Paris Agreement climate change treaty’s ambition - would require an annual decarbonisation rate of 6.9%. PwC’s Net Zero Economy Index aims to calculate national and global carbon intensity – measured as carbon dioxide divided by GDP – and use that to track the rate of change needed to limit warming to 1.5°C.
Emma Cox, Gobal Climate Leader at PwC, said that without bold action, the world risks exceeding 1.5°C of warming and the greater the overshoot, the more severe the impact. “Despite these warnings, the gap between goals and actions is growing," she said.
PwC found that energy demand continues to outpace the adoption of renewables, leading to higher fossil fuel use to sustain economies. Last year, renewable energy capacity hit a record high, increasing by 14% to 3,870 gigawatts (GW) from 2022 to 2023. But fossil fuel consumption also increased by 1.5% in 2023, reaching 16,007 GW.
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