The recently concluded annual gathering of the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) was dominated by the presence of government delegations, climate activists and a sharp rise in participation by business delegations. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said around 33,000 delegates had registered for COP27, making it the second-largest in COP history. A sign of hope that countries and organizations are waking up to the real need for combating climate change.
The science is very clear that in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change and preserve a liveable planet, global temperature increase needs to be limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Currently, the Earth is more than 1.1°C warmer than it was in the late 1800s, and emissions continue to rise. To keep global warming less than or equal to 1.5°C emissions must be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
In the summit, countries, cities, businesses and other institutions came together and pledged to get net-zero emissions targets achieved. More than 70 countries, including China, the United States of America, India, the European Union, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, Brazil who consist of top 7 emitters have set a net-zero target, covering about 76% of global emissions. Additionally, reports suggest that more than 3,000 businesses and financial institutions are working with the Science-Based Targets Initiative to reduce their emissions in line with climate science.
The net-zero pledges by nations have been accompanied by action points, but have varying levels of robustness. Competing approaches and concepts for “Net Zero” had been creating confusion. To develop stronger and clearer standards for net-zero emissions pledges by non-State entities such as businesses, investors, cities and regions, and speed up their implementation, there is a need for all to have unified guidelines. With the vision to lead the world in a united front towards a greener future, ISO (The International Organization for Standardization) has created a single core reference text on net zero guidance ‘Our 2050 world’. The guide or the standard is a common reference for collective efforts, offering a global basis for harmonizing, understanding, and planning for net zero for actors at the state, regional, city and organizational level. The Net Zero guidelines document provides guiding principles and recommendations to enable a common, global approach to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions through alignment of voluntary initiatives and adoption of standards, policies and national and international regulation. The reason such guides or standards are important is because they form a framework of voluntary and compliance tools that can be used by states and market actors to achieve their climate goals.
Standards are an underused resource for governments, industry and society everywhere to accelerate the transition to net zero. They can help to operationalize the Race to Zero member commitments, supporting the campaign’s Partner initiatives. Skilful use of standards that accelerate the transition to Net Zero will scale the deployment of existing technologies and bring forward emerging innovation. Beyond this lies the potential for standards to ‘break the mould’ by enabling the rapid disruption of industries and support scaling of value-chains that align with climate goals.
The strategic interventions, standards help to make are in collaborating with innovation agencies at subnational, national and supra-national level to support disruptive innovation. Also in prioritizing consensus building relating to solution-orientated innovation which supports new value-chains that are aligned with climate goals, alongside building global partnerships that will fast track future consensus building to reach our vision.
The scale of transition that economies must make will only be possible with collaborative action to drive net zero compatible market frameworks including voluntary and mandatory intervention. Reports highlight UN national climate plans as pointing at a 11% increase in emission levels by 2030, compared to 2010 levels, if only countries strive and achieve a reduction of 45% by 2030 can we hope to reach net zero emissions by mid-century. The time to save the planet is now!
(The author is Mr. Theuns Kotze, Managing Director Assurance BSI India, Middle East, Turkey and Africa, and the views expressed in this article are his own)
