<article><p class="lead">Guidance released earlier this year by a UN-backed campaign to steer companies toward net-zero greenhouse gas emissions "went too far" and needed "clarifications," according to a UN special envoy.</p><p>Financial institutions eyeing net-zero emissions need "specifics" and "guidance" but not anything resembling "legally binding strictures," Mark Carney, co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) and the UN special envoy for climate action and finance, said yesterday at the UN Climate Action Race to Zero and Resilience Forum during Climate Week NYC.</p><p>GFANZ is made up of seven sector-specific alliances — including the Net-Zero Banking Alliance and Net-Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative — organized under the UN's Race to Zero campaign. It has more than 500 members, representing more than $130 trillion in assets under management or advice. Members must commit to a net-zero by 2050 goal, provide interim targets for 2030 and deliver transparent reporting in line with UN criteria.</p><p>Carney, a former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, acknowledged reports that some major financial institutions that have joined GFANZ are concerned that the initiative's ambitious goals could subject them to legal scrutiny. </p><p>The Race to Zero campaign last week acknowledged that there was "cause for legal concern" in previously released text and <a target="_blank" href="https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/race-to-zero-clarifications/">amended its recommendations</a> to be more lenient around financing fossil-fuel assets and to remove a reference to "no new coal projects" altogether.</p><p>Calls for the private sector to do more to decarbonize have been common across Climate Week NYC events, and multiple UN-affiliated speakers suggested that scaling up net-zero commitments will be a topic of conversation at the upcoming COP 27 gathering in Egypt. But, at least for now, specifics around how far net-zero targets should go were not forthcoming.</p><p>One UN expert group will soon release recommendations for scaling up the ambition of private sector net-zero targets. The report is expected to explore current processes for verifying and accounting for progress toward decarbonization and provide a "roadmap to translate standards and criteria into international and national level regulations," the UN has said.</p><p>"We can expect that it will probably be launched at COP," former Canadian environment minister Catherine McKenna, the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities, said during the forum yesterday.</p><p class="bylines">By Cole Martin</p></article>
