United Nations's video: Climate Action: Net-Zero Emissions - Press Conference March 31 2022 United Nations

Briefing to the press by Catherine Mckenna, chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of non-State entities, and Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action and Assistant Secretary-General for the Climate Action Team, on Climate Action. “The decisions and actions that the world takes now will decide whether or not we have a chance to limit warming to 1.5 degrees and ensure a sustainable planet for future generations,” said the newly announced Chair of the High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities Catherine McKenna. Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, the world has seen an increasing number of Net Zero commitments by non-State actors. A proliferation of criteria and benchmarks has accompanied the growth in pledges to set net-zero commitments with varying levels of robustness. “We have a deficit of credibility and delivery and a surplus of confusion,” said McKenna talking to journalists today (31 Mar) in New York. “While it’s great to see an avalanche of Net-Zero pledges, they aren’t a Get Out of Jail Free card. You need to do the work to deliver real, ambitious, and immediate emissions reductions in a transparent and verifiable way,” she added. To develop stronger and clearer standards for net-zero emissions pledges by non-state entities – including businesses, investors, cities, and regions – and speed up their implementation, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres established a High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. The key objective is to stop global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – as the international community agreed in Paris in 2015. The launch of the Group comes amid a worsening climate crisis and the growing urgency for all commitments to be transparent, credible, backed by robust action plans, and converted into real emissions cuts as rapidly as possible. Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action, specified that the Group “is not to monitor individual companies or cities or have an enforcement function. Nevertheless, the Group is at the work of the Group will be essential in helping to deliver stronger and much clearer standards for Net Zero pledges that occur about apply equally across all non-State actors. As well as helping them to speed up the implementation of these pledges and commitments so that we can see the rapid and sustained emission reductions that the atmosphere so desperately needs.”