To prevent a worst-case scenario global warming will require the world’s largest institutions to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gasesand do it quickly. Over the past decade and a half, a standard form has emerged in which governments and corporations have made their pledge to do this: the net-zero target. This is generally a voluntary self-imposed deadline, usually decades away, by which the institution’s emissions will not necessarily actually reduce to zero, but rather by which they will at least ostensibly be canceled out by carbon offsets.
As a strategy, the net-zero target was criticized by climate advocates; at worst it can be a vague, unenforceable greenwashing program. But global efforts are underway to write standards for what makes a good one — and hold the target-setters to them. The net-zero targets that have actually been adopted show a surprisingly large variety in terms of their content: some refer to all greenhouse gas emissions, and others only to carbon dioxide; the strongest include sector-specific implementation plans and credible short-term targets, and cover all three emissions range up and down the value chain.
On Monday, the Net Zero Tracker, a cooperation between four climate organizations, released its most recent “Net Zero Stocktake” – a survey of the world’s climate pledges, including assessments of how serious the plans are to actually fulfill them. Since the group began publishing such reports annually since 2021, it has found that, at the national level, after years of more and more countries setting net-zero targets, the growth of such pledges has now leveled off, with 147 countries, including the European Union, which has now set a target. This includes most of the countries with the highest emissions. China, the world’s largest emitter, committed to carbon neutrality by 2060 in 2020 at the UN General Assembly. A notable exception is Azerbaijan, the oil-rich gas-leaking host of November’s COP29 UN climate change conference, which has no net-zero target.
But net-zero targets continue to proliferate in subnational governments, particularly at the state and regional levels, and in the private sector. In the 18 months since the 2023 report has been publishedincreased the number of companies with net-zero targets by 23 percent, and local regions by 28 percent. (Cities’ pledges only increased by 8 percent.)
The growth of regional targets is important because local governments play an important role in helping countries to actually achieve them decarbonisation. “Subnational regions have a major responsibility to achieve net zero on a global scale,” Sybrig Smit, a co-author of the report, said in a press briefing, adding that, in countries that have adopted national targets, “the credibility of those net zero targets simply increases when this level of ambition is also shown at lower levels of government.” In the US, 19 states have net-zero targets – and five of them are aiming for an earlier deadline than the federal 2050 goal.
But the promises vary greatly in substance — and very few meet anything like a gold standard. “For all the subnational governments and companies, only a very small percentage of them actually meet all the robustness or the integrity criteria” found in the report, Takeshi Kuramochi, another of the report’s co-authors, said in the briefing. said. For example, of the companies surveyed (the 2,000 largest in the world), only about half of those with net-zero targets covered all greenhouse gases, rather than just carbon dioxide. The measure on which companies and governments scored worst was clarity about the use of offsets: less than 10 percent of the net zero targets set by companies, cities and regions specified how much they would use offsets to achieve their goal reach.
While the overall landscape of net-zero targets appears to be plagued by insincerity, the report’s authors gave credit to those whose pledges were more substantive — and emphasized their role in leading by example, especially as standards for net-zero -targets are formalized. The report highlights Costa Rica’s 2030 net-zero target, which covers all greenhouse gas emissions and includes sector-specific and interim targets. In the private sector, Google and the Volvo Group received special praise in the report for covering all three emissions – meaning they cannot simply transfer their emissions to suppliers or ignore the footprint of their electricity consumption.
Giving credit where it’s due – in the hope of spurring better performance through public scrutiny – is part of the theory of change that sets best practices for net-zero targets can actually be an effective mechanism for climate action .
“Eventually, a lot of things will have to be regulated, and that’s a positive thing,” said Catherine McKenna, a former Canadian environment minister who chaired a United Nations expert group on non-governmental net-zero targets. , said in the briefing. “It creates a level playing field. This means there are consequences if you don’t do the work, and if you do the work, you can demonstrate that you are doing the work. We must distinguish between those who are and those who are not, and [ensure] that the people who do the work feel really good.”
