Businesses must start 'walking the talk' after making net-zero pledges, says Catherine McKenna
'You certainly cannot say I am a climate leader and then be pushing against climate policies': former minister
As COP27 wraps up its first week, former Canadian minister Catherine McKenna is calling for tougher restrictions on net-zero pledges to prevent greenwashing.
"I think most people would hope or expect that if you're a fossil fuel company and you're saying you're going to be net-zero, you're not talking about some idyllic future where there's going to be some amazing technological breakthrough," she told The Current's Matt Galloway.
"They think you're doing the work right now."
McKenna previously served as Canada's minister of environment and climate change, from 2015 to 2019.
She's currently the chair of a United Nations expert panel looking at net-zero commitments from non-state actors like businesses and financial institutions.
She said that while some companies are working hard to reduce their emissions, "the reality is a lot of folks are not doing that."
"It's actually hard to figure it out because there is a huge lack of reporting transparently," she said. "I mean, some of it is pure greenwashing. Some of it is maybe not understanding what's required."
McKenna is attending COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. She spoke to Galloway about the need for businesses to understand the urgency of the climate situation — and how young people are holding them accountable.
Here's part of their conversation.
So the nature of conferences like COP is that people will make promises and sometimes these promises are followed up on. Often they are not. You've said that we have to draw a red line on greenwashing. How big of an issue are those promises that can be, in your words, "little more than empty slogans and hype" if we are to actually get to a state of net zero?
The reality is it's super easy to just say, hey, I'm going to be net zero by 2050. It's a heck of a lot harder to do the work that's required.
That's why the [UN] secretary general [António Guterres] said we do not have time. We have to peak our emissions by 2025, reduce them by 45 per cent by 2030. We're far from that.
So if you are voluntarily going to say, I'm a climate leader, then you actually have to be walking the talk. That's why we're being very clear on … what you have to do and to what you cannot do, Otherwise, you are going to be following falling into the category of greenwashing.
But do you believe those industries when they say that they understand the urgency and that they're committed to helping to be part of the solution, not the problem?
I certainly hope they do. I mean, if you don't recognize that you need to future-proof your business, that you need to actually be part of the solution, that you need to be innovating and actually making money with new solutions that we need, then I don't know that you're really doing your job, but you certainly aren't living up to your commitment, even to consumers.
The reason I think, you know, so many people are doing this is because consumers are saying, "Hey, you know, I want to be supporting a company that's doing right by the environment." And so if you're doing that to attract business, I mean, the consumer has every right as the public to be saying, OK, is this true?
When I talk to young people, they're all looking — many of them are looking to work for a company that's actually reducing their emissions, that isn't just buying cheap credits as opposed to doing the hard work.
If you're, you know, someone with money invested in a pension plan and you hear it's net zero, I think you wouldn't think that they might still be investing in new fossil fuel supply. So I think it's actually something that's really important.
But I think what's good now is I think we've just said this is what's required in very clear terms, which isn't always what happens in the climate world … And to be honest, it's a lot. It's hard to do, but it's not that hard to actually measure.
Your emissions need to go down ambitiously, all of your emissions and who needs to be investing in clean solutions. And at the same time, we need to be thinking about, you know, how do we make sure everyone's benefiting?
I guess people are just trying to measure intentions. So one of the recommendations is that non-state actors should not be allowed to make pledges that they're going to get to net zero, and then go ahead and lobby to undermine government climate policies. How big of an issue is this when you were the minister here in Canada, that people in organizations would promise one thing and then try to lobby to to water down those regulations?
On a positive note, I was able to get support of businesses and banks and even an oil and gas company to support carbon pricing — and we built on what four provinces had done.
The negative side is that I've had tons of lobbying against policies, policies that would actually enable these businesses to do more.
But it's really negative because we know — you can't say on the one hand, it's up to government to act so they can set the framework for businesses to act and on the other hand, go and push government not to act or, you know, really push the public to mount campaigns against good policies.
So it is a huge issue, and I think you certainly cannot say I am a climate leader and then be pushing against climate policies. That's just not consistent.
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Is it time to name and shame those companies and organizations that are doing that?
There are certainly people that are doing that … But I think, you know, a lot of young people are looking at businesses and asking them tough questions when they go into interviews. And I talked to regular people like they want to know, is their bank actually walking the talk?
It's interesting because there's so many ways you can kind of greenwash. So you can say, well, I'm reducing the intensity of my emissions — and I think most people would say, well, what the heck does that mean? You know, it's a measure to show your emissions per unit are going down
But the planet doesn't care about that. They care about your absolute emissions going down. So your emissions intensity could go down while your emissions are going up and you're saying it's all good.
There's also the use of credits. So you're actually buying often cheap credits. It could be some project in who knows where, sometimes even hurting Indigenous people or local communities. And you're saying, OK, well I'm going to continue to pollute because I'm offsetting my pollution. And we've been clear that you've got to do the work.
Produced by Julie Crysler. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
