U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed a panel led by Canada’s former environment minister to ensure private companies obey climate directives with “every business, investor, city, state and region” targeted for compliance by the globalist body.
“Governments have the lion’s share of responsibility to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century,” Guterres said Friday when he announced the plan, adding this was particularly true for the Group of 20 major emerging and industrialized economies that account for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Now he wants private enterprise to be held to the same strictures of compliance, control and obedience via the grandly titled “High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of NonState Entities.”
“We also urgently need every business, investor, city, state and region to walk the talk on their net-zero promises,” Guterres warned.
The 16-member Expert Group’s recommendations for “higher ambition and environmental integrity” will address four areas of corporate compliance:
• Current standards and definitions for setting net-zero targets;
• Credibility criteria used to assess the objectives, measurement and reporting of net zero pledges;
• Processes for verification and accounting of progress towards net-zero commitments and reported decarbonization plans; and
• A roadmap to translate standards and criteria into international and national level regulations.
In addition to examining net-zero pledges by the private sector, the group will hold local and regional governments to account even if they don’t report directly to the U.N.
The panel includes Australian climate scientist Bill Hare, South Africa-based sustainable finance expert Malango Mughogho and the former governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan.
It will be chaired by Catherine McKenna, who was Canada’s minister of environment and climate change from 2015 to 2019.
McKenna urged businesses not to view net-zero pledges as a “get out of jail free card,” and said she backed the idea of including all emissions in the new standards, including those resulting from the use of a company’s product.
Last month Guterres warned the pain of soaring energy prices must be endured because any wider embrace of fossil fuels as an alternative is “madness” and threatens global climate targets, as Breitbart News reported.