“For net zero initiatives like GFANZ to work well, they require credibility beyond the initial commitment and fanfare,” she said. “This includes transparency such as routine progress reporting and verification, including disclosing the financing of fossil fuels.”
Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, co-chairs GFANZ together with Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
In an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua, Carney played down the risk of defections and said Race to Zero, the UN-backed net-zero project that underpins GFANZ, had gone “too far” with recent requirements for more stringent decarbonization targets. Race to Zero has since updated its language and emphasized that members must “independently find their own route” to the 1.5 degrees Celsius-aligned climate goal.
Cbus didn’t cite concerns around legal risks for its departure from GFANZ. Instead, it listed the administrative burden involved in staying. That’s as developing regulations and standards require signatories to meet parallel frameworks.
For some, these hurdles have led them to snub GFANZ from the get-go. Blackstone Inc., Apollo Global Management Inc. and KKR & Co. Inc. are among private equity giants that judged GFANZ membership an unnecessary burden. Insiders, on condition of anonymity, have referred to the near-impossibility of coming up with credible plans to eliminate their carbon footprints by 2050 as reason enough to avoid GFANZ and its sub-alliances.
Self says it’s now “evident the voluntary approach to the climate action will not work.”
Failure to meaningfully cut emissions comes at a huge cost, Gore said.
“The cost of these climate related extreme events to the global economy was $2.5 trillion, an increase of $1 trillion over the previous 10 years,” he said. “And because we’re continuing to add another 162 million tonnes of man-made global warming pollution every single day to the troposphere, of course it’s getting worse.”
The accumulated greenhouse gas pollution “in the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, which we’re using as if it’s an open sewer, now traps as much extra heat every day as would be released by 600,000 Hiroshima class atomic bombs exploding every 24 hours,” Gore said. “It’s quite literally insane. We have to change!”
--With assistance from Natasha White.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.