Companies pledging to reach net zero emissions should no longer be taken seriously if they keep investing in new fossil fuel supplies, a UN-backed group of experts has concluded.
In a first step to imposing regulation on a “wild west” of corporate net zero targets, the group laid out red lines to prevent “dishonest climate accounting”.
“Net zero is entirely incompatible with continued investment in fossil fuels,” the 17 experts said in a report published at the Cop27 climate conference today.
• Cop 27: The key points so far
They said companies trying to eliminate their emissions could no longer buy cheap carbon offsets, fail to count all their emissions – such as oil firms counting emissions from rigs but not from their customers burning