PLACING faith in net-zero targets and attempting to offset future carbon emissions with “business as usual” would condemn the world to catastrophe, a coalition of green and human rights groups warned today.

Representatives from the groups told the Cop26 summit that greenwashing and “delayism” is the new climate change denial, a brake on the movement for action in recent decades.

Speaking in Glasgow today, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, ActionAid and Global Witness, alongside indigenous representatives, called for governments to set “real” zero-carbon emission targets.

The groups said the language and setting of targets towards net zero — now common among governments and corporations — is nothing but smoke and mirrors, relying on solutions that do not exist or are not at all feasible. 

ActionAid International climate policy co-ordinator Teresa Anderson said: “They are using the veneer of this target to greenwash. There is not enough land on the planet to offset all of this continued pollution. 

“There is no alternative to systemic change to bring emissions down to a real zero.”

She said that transforming global systems would be very hard work but that, after 26 such annual summits, that work hasn’t really begun. 

“We have to be willing to take a risk, be different, be radical, bring voices into these spaces — and be laughed out of the room the first 10 times we say it. Unless we do this, we don’t have a chance. We need to do the math and understand that.

“Our job is to normalise the radical, because nothing less will give us a chance of a liveable planet.”

Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard said the UN was founded to operate across borders, and the fight against climate change is the perfect representation of this. 

She said: “We, the people, need real action from our government rather than offset schemes that will harm us in the long term and are harming us now.” 

Sonia Guajajara of indigenous group Articulacao dos Povos Indigenas do Brasil said that peoples such as hers are already feeling the effects of failure, particularly at the hands of President Jair Bolonsaro. 

She said that communities must be empowered and that any false solutions should be flatly rejected. 

Global Witness campaigns director Seema Joshi warned the problem is companies are refusing to cut emissions now. 

It is a form of delayism, the modern form of denialism, with a continuation of focus from fossil fuel companies on traditional fuels, she said, pointing to the scale of lobbying at Cop26. 

Global Witness had earlier released findings of its own study, which found that fossil fuel companies and lobbyists had more than 500 delegates in Glasgow, a larger body than any single nation at the climate conference. 

Analysis of the UN’s provisional list of named attendees suggests that 503 delegates at Cop26 are either directly affiliated with fossil fuel companies or are affiliated to oil, gas or coal firms.

Some 27 official national delegations registered fossil-fuel lobbyists, including Canada, Russia and Brazil.

Campaigners want to see a policy that excludes organisations with financial or vested interests in the production or burning of fossil fuels from such a summit.

The calls for action come as research show that the world's poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries could lose almost two thirds of their economy by the end of the century. 

Analysis by Christian Aid shows the world’s most at-risk countries could suffer an average 64 per cent hit to their economy by 2100 under current climate policies. 

The study also suggests countries could see their GDP reduced by a fifth by 2050 on the policies that countries have in place to tackle climate change, which put the world on track for 2.9°C of warming.

Campaigners warned that a robust system for dealing with the inevitable loss and damage to people, land, livelihoods and infrastructure caused by rising temperatures is needed — as well as more action to cut emissions.

Nushrat Chowdhury, Christian Aid’s climate justice adviser from Bangladesh, said: “People are losing everything. Sea levels are rising, and people are desperate to adapt to the changing situations.

“If ever there was a demonstration of the need for a concrete loss and damage mechanism, this is it.”