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Want to avoid greenwashing label? Go from targets to action, track progress, suggests Catherine McKenna
Everyone's talking about greenwashing at COP26. Why? For Catherine McKenna, Canada's former minister of Infrastructure and Communities, it's too easy to make commitments without having a process in place to deliver. Good words, she says, are no longer enough. "We need to understand how you're going to translate your targets into real action. And then we need to track that progress. That's exactly what governments need to do, but it's also what businesses need to do."
McKenna spoke during a live Global Stage event, "Climate Crisis: Is net zero really possible?" Watch the full event here.
COP26 vibes so far: "What's it worth to save everything we have?"
What's the state of play so far at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow? Why is it so urgent to speed up climate action before it's too late? What does climate justice for developing nations really mean? And how can companies do their part without greenwashing? Several experts debated these and other questions during a Global Stage livestream conversation hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with Microsoft during the opening week of COP26, moderated by Eurasia Group senior adviser Diana Fox Carney.
Gerald Butts, vice chairman of Eurasia Group, explained the difference between climate justice and just transition to clean energy, and how the political debate on climate has moved to who's responsible to what we're going to do about it.
Atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist at The Nature Conservancy and Director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University., offered her thoughts on progress made since Paris 2015, why everything we do matters because climate is loading the dice against us, the need to set goals despite the human tendency to procrastinate, why we need to put value on climate because everything we have is worth saving, and why individuals should use their voices more than their actions to advocate for change on climate.
Naoko Ishii, Director of Center for Global Commons, and Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo, detailed how we need to persuade the Japanese people to come up with a climate agenda they can own, and how to integrate the value of natural capital into economic decision-making by putting a price on carbon.
Microsoft chief environmental officer Lucas Joppa talked about why it's time for corporations to go from pledges to performance on climate action, why the private sector's role should be building climate solutions for the public sector, the importance of technology to move the needle on corporate sustainability, and why training the workforce in green skills should be a shared responsibility.
DRC member of parliament and former speaker Jeanine Mabunda Lioko discussed the paradox of a global green economy that'll still need a lot of raw materials from Africa, the facts and figures that illuminate the climate justice question, and why some climate goals are reachable for the continent — just not developing with only renewable energy.
Catherine McKenna, former Canadian minister of Infrastructure and Communities, spoke about the huge opportunity to scale up public-private partnerships on climate with blended finance, the need to track progress on top of disclosure to prevent greenwashing, and the right incentives for behavioral change on climate.- Viewpoint: What to watch at COP26 - GZERO Media ›
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Is net zero really possible? Watch our live event
As COP26 nears, the need for real climate action has never been more urgent. There are reasons for hope, but many scientists believe the ambitious goal of net zero emissions by 2050 is unattainable without immediate and significant change. Governments, financial institutions, and private sector companies alike have all recognized the need for a multistakeholder approach to solving this crisis of a lifetime.
Watch "Climate Crisis: Is net zero really possible?" a one-hour virtual livestream, hosted by GZERO Media and Microsoft as part of the Global Stage series, to hear scientists, corporate leaders and policymakers debate this question and offer critical perspectives on the way forward. Live on Tuesday, November 2nd at 11am ET, we'll break down what "net zero" means, take stock of where the world is on the path to carbon neutrality, and discuss critical steps needed to make real progress.
Speakers include:
- Diana Fox Carney, Senior Advisor, Eurasia Group
- Gerald Butts, Vice-Chairman, Eurasia Group
- Katharine Hayhoe, Atmospheric Scientist, Professor and Director of the Climate Science Center, Texas Tech University
- Naoko Ishii, Director of Center for Global Commons, and Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo
- Lucas Joppa, Chief Environmental Officer, Microsoft
- Jeanine Mabunda Lioko, Member of Parliament for Bumba, DRC, Former President of the National Assembly of the DRC
- Catherine McKenna, former Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, Canada
Climate Crisis: Is net zero really possible?
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
11 am ET / 8 am PT
To watch live on November 2, go to: https://www.gzeromedia.com/globalstage/
Stay informed on upcoming live discussions from GZERO Media: sign up for updates and reminders about GZERO Media's events.