3⃣thoughts on Sunak's net zero speech:
1. It's not surprising to see growing contestation around implementing net zero. Every country with real climate policy is having this debate as both climate change & decarbonization affect wider and wider swaths of society more deeply. Politicization is perhaps uncomfortable but also necessary, given decarbonization requires building and using political power to transform the economy, which creates winners and losers.

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero has announced it will encourage but no longer require its members to join Race to Zero. Notably, the 7 GFANZ alliances remain committed to R2Z. Some thoughts on where this leaves the push for integrity. assets.bbhub.io/company/sites/… First, what was the situation before? GFANZ has never itself been a standard-setter/verifier. It has instead said that members need to align to the general Race to Zero criteria, which also cover non-financial businesses, cities, regions, etc.

As the world explores how to make net zero work, we’re also beginning to see moves to create standards & benchmarks. Perhaps most centrally, the UN-led @COP26 Race to Zero campaign led by High-level Climate Champions @topnigel @gmunozabogabir has a set of “starting line” criteria

https://twitter.com/topnigel/status/1374300244243021824

(N.B. our report is not directly assessing ‘compliance’ with the Race to Zero since we look at a specific set of actors, and is based only on publicly available information. Race to Zero criteria are operationalized by its partner initiatives)

Out today: We assess the robustness of over 4000 net zero targets:
🌎202 countries
🏙️All 1000+ cities over 500k pop.
🗺️All 800+ regions in 25 highest emitters
💹All Forbes Global 2000 companies

769 have a net zero target. But only 149 are 'best in class'.
netzeroclimate.org/innovation-for… Net zero targets are spreading rapidly, which is a powerful example of the "Paris Effect". But that rapid spread means it’s a bit of a Wild West in terms of what net zero means. This report seeks to assess not just quantity but also quality. It shows we have more work to do.

Today the High-level Climate Champions @gmunozabogabir @topnigel launch the #RaceToZero, a campaign uniting the cities, businesses, states/regions, investors, universities and others committing to fully eliminate their contribution to climate change unfccc.int/climate-action…
1/n It's big. If you add in the countries setting #netzero targets as part of the Climate Ambition Alliance, you get over half of global GDP, 23% of global emissions, and 2.6 billion people. 2/n
eciu.net/analysis/infog…