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Net-zero emissions is a common abbreviation of net zero annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. It means that, over the course of a year, greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans are exactly balanced by greenhouse sinks caused by humans. Humans cause no change, over the course of that year, to the global warming effects of the greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere. Net-zero emissions is often further shortened to net zero.
Emissions can refer to all greenhouse gases or only to carbon dioxide (). Reaching net zero is necessary to stop further Climate change. It requires deep cuts in emissions, for example by shifting from to sustainable energy, improving energy efficiency and halting deforestation. A small remaining fraction of emissions can then be offset using carbon dioxide removal.
People often use the terms net-zero emissions, carbon neutrality , and climate neutrality with the same meaning. However, in some cases, these terms have different meanings. For example, some standards for carbon neutral certification allow a lot of carbon offsetting. But net zero standards require reducing emissions to more than 90% and then only offsetting the remaining 10% or less to fall in line with 1.5 °C targets. Organizations often offset their residual emissions by buying carbon credits.
In the early 2020s net zero became the main framework for climate action. Many countries and organizations are setting net zero targets. As of November 2023, around 145 countries had announced or are considering net zero targets, covering close to 90% of global emissions. They include some countries that were resistant to climate action in previous decades. Country-level net zero targets now cover 92% of global GDP, 88% of emissions, and 89% of the world population. 65% of the largest 2,000 publicly traded companies by annual revenue have net zero targets. Among Fortune 500 companies, the percentage is 63%. Company targets can result from both voluntary action and government regulation.
Net zero claims vary enormously in how credible they are, but most have low credibility despite the increasing number of commitments and targets. While 61% of global carbon dioxide emissions are covered by some sort of net zero target, credible targets cover only 7% of emissions. This low credibility reflects a lack of binding regulation. It is also due to the need for continued innovation and investment to make decarbonization possible.
To date, 27 countries have enacted domestic net zero legislation. These are laws that contain net zero targets or equivalent. There is currently no national regulation in place that legally requires companies based in that country to achieve net zero. However several countries, for example Switzerland, are developing such legislation.
The idea of net-zero emissions is often confused with "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere", a term from the 1992 Rio Convention. The two concepts are not the same. This is because the carbon cycle continuously sequesters or absorbs a small portion of human-caused atmospheric CO2 into vegetation and the ocean, even after CO2 emissions are reduced to zero. If CO2 emissions from human activities are reduced to net zero, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would decline. This would be at a rate just fast enough to compensate for the slow warming of the deep ocean. The result would be approximately constant global average surface temperatures over decades or centuries. In contrast, stabilising atmospheric CO2 concentrations would allow for some ongoing emissions, but global temperatures would continue to rise over many centuries due to the ocean’s Climate inertia to warming.
Some targets aim to reach net-zero emissions only for carbon dioxide. Others aim to reach net-zero emissions of all greenhouse gases. Robust net zero standards state that all greenhouse gases should be covered by a given actor's targets.
Some authors say that carbon neutrality strategies focus only on carbon dioxide, but net zero includes all greenhouse gases. However some publications, such as the national strategy of France, use the term "carbon neutral" to mean net reductions of all greenhouse gases. The United States has pledged to achieve "net zero" emissions by 2050. As of March 2021 it had not specified which greenhouse gases will be included in its target.
In climate change discussions, the terms net zero, carbon neutrality, and climate neutrality are often used as if they mean the same thing. In some contexts, however, they have different meanings from each other. The sections below explain this. People often use these terms without rigorous standard definitions.
Another key measure to reduce emissions is increasing efficiency. Historically, improved energy efficiency has been the most successful measure to reduce emissions. Policies to improve efficiencies include setting fuel efficiency standards for cars and promoting building insulation and public transport.
Experts and net zero frameworks disagree over the exact percentage of residual emissions that may be allowed. Most guidance suggests this should be limited to a small fraction of total emissions. Sector-specific and geographical factors would determine how much. The Science Based Targets initiative says that residual emissions across most sectors should fall to below 10% of an organization's baseline emissions by 2050. It should be even lower for some sectors with competitive alternatives like the power sector. Sectors such as heavy manufacturing where it is harder to mitigate emissions will probably have a higher percentage of residual emissions by 2050.
The ISO and BSI Group publish "carbon neutrality" standards that have higher tolerance for residual emissions than "net zero" standards. For example, BSI PAS 2060 is a British standard for measuring carbon neutrality. According to these standards, carbon neutrality is a short-term target, and net zero is a longer-term target.
Strong standards such as the ISO and BSI "net zero" standards only allow removal-based offsets that have the same permanence as the greenhouse gases that they balance. The term for this concept is "like for like" removals. Permanence means that removals must store greenhouse gases for the same period as the lifetime of the GHG emissions they balance. For example, methane has a lifetime of around 12 years in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide lasts between 300 and 1,000 years. Accordingly, removals that balance carbon dioxide must last much longer than removals that balance methane.
Carbon credits can also fund initiatives that aim to avoid emissions. One example would be energy efficiency retrofits or renewable energy projects. Avoided emissions offsets result from actions that reduce emissions relative to a baseline or status quo. But they do not remove emissions from the atmosphere. Weak standards such as ISO and BSI "carbon neutrality" standards allow organizations to use avoided-emissions carbon credits. They do not specify how permanent or durable a credit must be.
Carbon offsetting has been criticized on several fronts. One important concern is that offsets may delay active emissions reductions. In a 2007 report from the Transnational Institute, Kevin Smith likened carbon offsets to medieval indulgences. He said they allowed people to pay "offset companies to absolve them of their carbon sins." He said this permits a "business as usual" attitude that stifles required major changes. Many people have criticized offsets for playing a part in greenwashing. This argument appeared in a 2021 watchdog ruling against Shell plc.
Loose regulation of claims by carbon offsetting schemes combined with the difficulties in calculating greenhouse gas sequestration and emissions reductions has also given rise to criticism. This argument is that this can result in schemes that do not adequately offset emissions in reality. There have been moves to create better regulation. The United Nations has operated a certification process for carbon offsets since 2001. This is called the Clean Development Mechanism. It aims to stimulate "sustainable development and emission reductions, while giving industrialized countries some flexibility in how they meet their emission reduction limitation targets." The UK Government's Climate Change Committee says reported emissions reductions or removals may have happened anyway or. not last into the future. This is despite an improvement in standards globally and in the UK.
There has also been criticisms of non-native and monocultural forest plantations as carbon offsets. This is because of their "limited—and at times negative—effects on native biodiversity" and other ecosystem services.
Most of the carbon credits on the voluntary market today do not meet UN, UNFCCC, ISO or SBTi standards for permanent carbon dioxide removals. So significant investment in carbon capture and permanent geological storage will probably be necessary to achieve net-zero targets by mid-century.
The "United Nations High-Level Expert Group" on the net-zero emissions commitments of non-state entities has made several recommendations for . Non-state actors include cities, regional governments, financial institutions, and corporations. One of these is not financing new fossil fuel development. Another is supporting strong climate policy. And another is ensuring that business activities and investments do not contribute to deforestation.
65% of the largest 2,000 publicly traded companies by annual revenue have net zero targets. Among Fortune 500 companies the percentage is 63%. Company targets can result from both voluntary action and government regulation.
Corporate net zero targets vary in how widely they cover emissions related to the company's activities. This can greatly affect the volume of emissions that are counted. Some oil companies, for instance, claim that their operations (Scopes 1 and 2) produce net-zero emissions. These claims do not cover the emissions produced when the oil is burned by its customers, which are 70 - 90% of oil-related emissions. This is because they count as Scope 3 emissions.
Robust net zero standards require Scope 3 emissions to be counted, but "carbon neutrality" standards do not.
Many companies often claim a commitment to reach net-zero emissions by the year 2050. These promises are often made at the corporate level. Both governments and international agencies encourage businesses to contribute to a national, or international, net zero pledge. The International Energy Agency says that global investment in low carbon substitutes for fossil fuels needs to reach US$4 trillion annually by 2030 for the world to get to net zero by 2050.
Some analyses have raised concerns that net zero cannot be achieved worldwide by 2050.
On average, approximately 29% of companies in EU member states have formulated a respective target to achieve net zero or have already reached this goal. However, these numbers can vary significantly across different industries, countries, and firm sizes. External pressures, such as companies' exposure to risks associated with climate change and its perception as a problem, can influence a company's ambition to adopt specific targets and strategies.
Cities and countries pose a challenge when it comes to calculating emissions. This is because the production of products and services within their boundaries might be linked to either internal consumption or exports. At the same time the population also consumes imported products and services. So it is important to state explicitly whether emissions are counted at the location of production or consumption. This helps to prevent double counting. The lengthy manufacturing chains of a globalised market might make this challenging. There are additional challenges with looking at renewable energy systems and electric vehicle batteries. This is because the necessary embodied energy and other effects of raw material extraction are often significant when measuring life-cycle emissions. However the local emissions at the place they are used may be small.Huovila, A., Siikavirta, H., Antuña Rozado, C., Rökman, J., Tuominen, P., Paiho, S., Hedman, Å., Ylén, P.: " Carbon-neutral cities: Critical review of theory and practice". Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 341, 20 March 2022.
It is argued that net zero in India “will largely depend upon the synergy between national and state government policies and actions across various economic and social sectors.”
Some cattle farmers are lobbying for GWP*, which has been described as "dangerous".
According to World Population Review, a number of countries have net zero, or net negative carbon emissions: Bhutan, Comoros, Gabon, Guyana, Madagascar, Panama, and Suriname. However, according to the World Resources Institute, all of these countries have net positive greenhouse gas emissions. These countries generally have a high level of forestation.
Tzeporah Berman, chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, has criticized net zero claims by fossil fuel companies, describing them as "delusional and based on bad science".
A consortium of climate scientists has tracked net zero commitments. Their research found that net pledges drafted in law or policy documentation have grown from 7% of countries in 2020 to 75% in 2023. However, very few have met the minimum requirements for a "decent pledge". The UN Race to Zero campaign calls them "starting line criteria". This states that they must have a "plan and published evidence of action taken towards reaching the target" besides a stated pledge.
At the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), the High-Level Expert Group on the net-zero emissions commitments of non-state entities of the United Nations formed the previous March by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and chaired by former Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna released a report that stated that the carbon neutrality pledges of many , , regional governments, and financial institutions around the world often amount to nothing more than greenwashing and provided 10 recommendations to ensure greater credibility and accountability for carbon neutrality pledges such as requiring non-state actors to publicly disclose and report verifiable information (e.g. greenhouse gas inventories and carbon footprint accounting in prospectus for financial securities) that substantiates compliance with such pledges.
After the release of the report, Net Zero Tracker, a research consortium that includes the NewClimate Institute, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, the Data-Driven EnviroLab of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Myles Allen at the University of Oxford issued a report evaluating the climate neutrality pledges of 116 of 713 regional governments, of 241 of cities with populations greater than , and of of Public company in the 25 countries with the greatest emissions (whose pledges cover more than 90% of the gross world product) by the recommendations of the UN report and found that many these pledges were largely unsubstantiated and more than half of cities had no plan for tracking and reporting compliance with pledges.
Offset projects themselves could have harmful effects. The ISO Net Zero Guidelines say that net zero strategies should align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.This is in order to "support equity and global transition to a net-zero economy, and any subsequent UN global goals which supersede the 2030 SDGs." The UNFCCC's Race to Zero campaign says emissions reductions and removals should "safeguard the rights of the most vulnerable people and communities". It says that organizations should disclose how they will support communities affected by climate impacts and climate transition.
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