You’d be forgiven for feeling lost in the wash of climate announcements at COP26. We have been inundated with targets and pledges throughout the past two weeks, meaning scrutiny of the conference’s true impact on climate change is proving tough.
At the centre of this deluge is one culprit: “net zero.” Framed by some governments as the zenith of climate action, the phrase “net zero by 2050” may sound comfortingly technical, but it hides all manner of climate crimes. It has been a contentious issue throughout COP26, with civil society groups (and even Greta Thunberg) calling it out as greenwash.
This comes on top of Climate Action Tracker’s shattering announcement on 9th November that, despite the veneer of progress at the climate conference, under current pledges the planet is on track to hit 2.4C temperature rises by the end of the century. There is an extraordinary “credibility gap” between pledges and action.
Scratch the surface of a net zero target, and you’ll likely search in vain for the radical, systemic transformations in our energy, food, transport and industrial systems that are so urgently needed to ensure a liveable planet. This is in part because, as a target for emissions neutrality decades from now, net zero slows the momentum and pressure for climate action in the present.
Carbon offsetting lies at the heart of the net zero accounting trick. The “net” of net zero makes it hard to tell whether governments and corporations are really doing the hard work to slash emissions—or if they simply plan to carry on polluting, and then offset the difference later to claim carbon neutrality. In this way it gives them impunity to continue pumping thousands of tonnes of emissions into the atmosphere, so long as they promise that at some point in the future they will compensate by offsetting that year’s pollution. This is business-as-usual in disguise.
Some net zero targets are so blatantly greenwash that they are ridiculous—like Australia’s, where the country is pushing its coal industry in plain sight and also, miraculously, heading to “net zero by 2050.”
At the core of offsetting is the land question. Most net zero targets assume they’ll be planting a lot of trees. And a lot of trees requires a lot of land somewhere. Even oil companies, such as Royal Dutch Shell, aim to reach net zero by 2050. ActionAid’s analysis shows that their offsetting plans by 2030 would require land three times the size of the Netherlands.
And whose lands will be taken up by these carbon offset projects? Shell is clearly not planning to turn the urban areas and agricultural fields of the Netherlands and its European neighbours into a giant tree plantation. Instead, carbon offset projects almost always look to Africa, Asia and Latin America to provide the land needed to fix the problem caused by big polluters. No wonder indigenous groups have been criticising offsets, carbon markets and vague “nature-based solutions” over the last week. Indigenous people, smallholder farmers and women in the global south have learned from experience that their lands, rights and food security are the first to be sacrificed when corporations come calling.
To put it bluntly, there simply isn’t enough land on the planet to offset all the emissions hidden in the thousands of government and corporate net zero targets that have been announced. Projects to restore nature are critical to shore up fundamental ecosystems, improve human wellbeing and help us adapt to a warming world. But they are no substitute for emissions reductions. What we are seeing is nature restoration—which should be a good in itself—co-opted into the logic of pollute-now, offset-later.
This delusion at the heart of net zero assumptions means that carbon offsets will sabotage the Paris agreement’s target to limit planetary warming to 1.5C. What is needed instead is real zero, which means cutting emissions as quickly and as close to zero as possible. This real zero is not absolute—of course there will be residual emissions from some “hard to decarbonise” sectors. But offsets should be a last resort and limited to domestic rewilding. Real zero would throw everything and the kitchen sink at systemic transformation, a green transition that centres on justice and provides international climate finance, while recognising the planet’s limited capacity to offset emissions.
COP26 has been COP by announcement, where instead of real, negotiated multilateralism, media and observers have been swamped with thousands of pledges, often unaccompanied by documents and with no accountable link to national climate plans.
Net zero is a facade, behind which is lodged the continued use of fossil fuels. Big polluters should do their fair share, not thrust offsets onto the global south and delay real cuts now. We must bring emissions down to real zero to have any chance of a liveable planet.
