• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Monday, February 6, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Environment

As Climate ‘Net-Zero’ Plans Grow, So Do Concerns From Scientists

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
12/08/21
in Environment, Featured
climate change protest

File photo: Markus Spiske/Unsplash

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Faced with the prospect that climate change will drive ever deadlier heat waves, rising seas and crop failures that will menace the global food system, countries, corporations and cities appear to have come up with a plan: net zero. 

The concept is simple: starting now, to ensure that by a certain date — usually 2050 — they absorb as much carbon dioxide as they emit, thereby achieving carbon neutrality. 

But scientists and monitoring groups are growing increasingly alarmed at the slew of vague net-zero pledges that appear to privilege offsets and future technological breakthroughs over short-term emissions cuts. 

“They’re not fit for purpose, any of them,” Myles Allen, director of Oxford Net Zero at the University of Oxford said of today’s carbon neutrality plans. 

“You can’t offset continued fossil fuel use by planting trees for very long. Nobody has even acknowledged that in their net-zero plans, even the really ambitious countries,” he told AFP.

Last month’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow saw major emitter India commit for the first time to work towards net-zero emissions, joining the likes of China, the United States and the European Union. 

According to Net Zero Tracker (NZT), 90 percent of global GDP is now covered by some sort of net-zero plan. But it said that the vast majority remain ill-defined. 

Take offsets. These are when countries or companies deploy measures — such as tree planting or direct CO2 capture — to compensate for the emissions they produce. NZT found that 91 percent of country targets, and 48 percent of public company targets, failed to even specify whether offsets feature in their net-zero plans.  

Which emissions?

What’s more, it found that less than a third (32 percent) of corporate net-zero targets cover what are known as “scope 3 emissions” — those from a company’s product, which normally account for the vast majority of carbon pollution from a given business. 

Alberto Carrillo Pineda, co-founder of Science Based Targets initiative, which helps companies align their net-zero plans with what science says is needed to avoid catastrophic heating, said most decarbonization pledges “don’t make sense” without including scope 3 emissions. 

“From a climate point of view it matters, the companies are driving emissions not only through their operations but also through what they buy and sell,” he told AFP. 

“And that constitutes their business model. A company wouldn’t exist without their product and so their product needs considering from an emissions point of view.”

The UN climate change body, UNFCCC, analysed the latest national emissions cutting plans during COP26. 

It found that they would see emissions increase 13.7 percent by 2030, when they must fall by roughly half to keep the Paris Agreement warming limit of 1.5C within reach. 

Of the 74 countries that have published detailed net-zero plans, the UNFCCC found that their emissions would fall 70-79 percent by 2050 — a significant drop, but still not net zero. 

Stuart Parkinson, executive director of Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), said governments had started to use net-zero pledges as a way of delaying the immediate action the atmosphere needs. 

“From our perspective, that’s thoroughly irresponsible,” he said. 

“It is kicking the problem into the long grass and relying on speculative efforts in technology when we know that we can change behavior right here and now and reduce emissions.” 

Last month UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said an independent group would be established to monitor companies’ net-zero progress. 

‘Rude awakening’

Many countries and businesses plan to deploy mass reforestation as part of net-zero plans. Experts say this is problematic for two reasons. 

The first is simple science: Earth’s plants and soil already absorb enormous amounts of manmade CO2 and there are signs that carbon sinks such as tropical forests are reaching saturation point. 

“The concern is that the biosphere is turning from a sink to a source by warming itself,” said Allen. 

“So relying on the biosphere to store fossil carbon is really daft when we may well need all the nature-based solutions we can find just to keep the carbon content of the biosphere stable.”

Teresa Anderson, senior policy director at ActionAid International, said relying on land-based carbon sequestration was “setting Earth up for a rude awakening”.

But the concept is also problematic from the perspective of human rights and fairness.

“When it comes to the competition for land to plant trees and bioenergy, that’s going to impact low-income communities, the ones that have done the least to cause the problem,” Anderson told AFP.

And because humans have already burned through most of the carbon budget — that is, how much total carbon pollution we can produce before 1.5C is breached — there simply isn’t time to delay. 

This year the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that since 1850, humans had emitted around 2400 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. That leaves just 460 billion tonnes left before 1.5C is breached — around 11 years at current emissions rates. 

Pineda said that while hundreds of companies have made net-zero pledges, “very few” have concrete long-term plans to decarbonize. 

“We need to be very skeptical of any target that doesn’t have clear milestones in terms of how the company is going to halve emissions by 2030,” he said. 

“Any net-zero target without a 2030 milestone is just unbelievable, basically.”

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

People cool off with a fountain's water during a heat wave in Seville, Spain
Environment

UN Confirms 2022 Among Eight Hottest Years on Record

by Staff Writer
January 13, 2023
Shell
Environment

Greenpeace Sues UK Government Over Shell Gas Field

by Staff Writer
July 27, 2022
Joe Biden
Environment

Biden Vows Climate Action as Heat Waves Slam US, Europe

by Staff Writer
July 20, 2022
Australia wildlife
Environment

‘Shocking’ Government Report Lists Devastation to Australia Wildlife

by Staff Writer
July 19, 2022
Joe Biden climate summit
Environment

Biden Calls Clean Energy Matter of National Security in Face of Russia War

by Staff Writer
June 17, 2022
climate change
Environment

Developing Countries Left ‘Disappointed’ at Climate Talks

by Staff Writer
June 16, 2022
Next Post
Afghan refugees

The Insult of Borders

covid variants

Omicron Spreading in Africa But Data Suggests 'Less Severe': WHO

Recommended

Syrian rescuers and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building, in the rebel-held northern countryside of Syria's Idlib province on the border with Turkey, early on February 6, 2023. Syrian rescuers (White Helmets) and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building

Quake Kills Over 1,200 Across Turkey, Syria

February 6, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
A supporter of nurses' strike and NHS holds a placard

UK Faces Fresh Mass Strikes as Wage Talks Derail

February 1, 2023
Israeli security forces in Jerusalem

Palestinian Gunman Kills 7 in East Jerusalem Synagogue Attack

January 30, 2023
The Doomsday Clock reads 100 seconds to midnight, a decision made by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, during an announcement at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on January 23, 2020

‘Doomsday Clock’ Moves Closest Ever to Midnight

January 25, 2023
Police work near the scene of a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California

California Lunar New Year Mass Shooter Dead, Motive Unclear: Police

January 23, 2023

Opinion

Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Commuters waiting for buses in Metro Manila. Philippines

Eight Billion and Counting…

November 29, 2022
Mahsa Amini protests

Imagining a Free Iran

October 24, 2022
Vladimir Putin

How 18th Century International Law Clarifies the Situation in Ukraine

September 29, 2022
Vladimir Putin

Falling for Putin

September 15, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post