UN selects Catherine McKenna to chair panel on climate change

The United Nations announced on Thursday that it would be appointing former Trudeau Infrastructure and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna to lead an expert panel to judge companies' attempts at curbing climate change.

During a press conference on Thursday, McKenna said that her and that of the committee would be to ensure that companies abide by their net-zero commitments. The sheer number of pledges, McKenna said, require supervision.

"The secretary general has been clear that we have a crucial need for stronger and clearer standards and criteria for net-zero commitments by everyone from businesses to investors to cities and regions," said McKenna, quoting Antonio Gutierrez.

"Let's be clear," she continued, "while it's great to see an avalanche of net-zero pledges, they aren't a get-out-of-jail-free card. You need to do the work to deliver real, ambitious, and immediate emissions reductions in a transparent and verifiable way."

"The decisions and actions that the world takes now will decide whether or not we have a chance to limit warming to 1.5 degrees and assure a sustainable planet for future generations," she said.

Environmental action and net-zero pledges will be monitored by a 16-member panel, that will make recommendations to standardize targets, as well as how to measure progress.

The panel will track not just the private sector, but also government commitments.

Canada is one of the many developed countries that has made blindly ambitious steps towards achieving net-zero. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently went so far as to say that Canada would only "perhaps" play a "modest" role in weening European countries off of Russian energy.

"The contrast between the need to ensure that Europe's dependence on Russian oil and gas seizes, that Russia punished with crippling sanctions, at the same time, we're able to pivot more quickly towards renewables," said Trudeau.

"In the medium term and in the long term, that is something Canada continues to be committed to. We recognize that replacing Russian oil and gas in the short term is going to be important," he said.

"Canada can play, perhaps, a modest role in that. But, our commitment to reaching net neutrality by 2050, to hitting our climate commitments by 2030 remains as firm as ever, and Indeed, the partnerships we're looking at building with the European Union on issues of hydrogen... [and] renewables, are very promising, in terms of getting the world not just off Russian oil and gas, but decarbonizing our energy economy entirely," he concluded.