Since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declines, with good reason, to deliver a scientific formula for fairly distributing mitigation obligations among individual states, every government is able to declare confidently that its national pledges are in line with global temperature targets. As it stands, mitigation efforts can only be critically evaluated at the global level. However, no single country can be made responsible for the looming breach of the 2 °C or 1.5 °C target.
Steering action
Compared to temperature thresholds, targeting greenhouse gas neutrality is noticeably more precise, easier to evaluate, politically more likely to be attained, and ultimately more motivating too. Since this goal directly tackles the actions perceived as problematic, their effectiveness at steering policy can be expected to be much greater than “1.5 °C” or “well below 2 °C”.
A zero emissions target shows the policymakers, the media and the public fairly precisely what needs to be done. If global greenhouse gas neutrality in the sense of Article 4 of the Paris Agreement is interpreted to mean that all signatories have to gradually reach “net zero” between 2050 and 2100, then they must all be measured against the same yardstick. Any differentiation between these obligations – for instance, between industrialized nations, emerging economies and developing countries – can only occur along the time axis. Under the “bottom-up” approach of the Paris Agreement, governments make that decision for themselves.
Each country’s emissions must first peak (which is already the case for 49 of them), then continually decrease and finally attain zero. Measured against this target, it is easy to make mitigation action transparent – not just of national governments, but of cities, economic sectors, and individual companies as well.
Whoever ignores the target will not be able to deceive others: it is relatively easy to ascertain whether the respective emissions are going up or down. Wherever greenhouse gas neutrality becomes the socially accepted norm, new fossil-fuel infrastructure would be very hard to justify.
A zero emissions vision could also kickstart a race to reach the zero line before others. Some countries have already taken up the challenge. Sweden, for instance, hopes to reach zero by 2045. The United Kingdom has at least declared its willingness to announce its zero emissions target soon.
Whoever ignores the target will not be able to deceive others: it is relatively easy to ascertain whether the respective emissions are going up or down
Obviously, even a zero emissions target is no guarantee that all emissions reduction measures will be implemented as planned. Given the perspective of several decades, such a guarantee cannot exist. Since greenhouse gas neutrality is primarily about setting a clear direction, rather than positing an imaginary border between “acceptable” and “dangerous” climate change (namely 2 °C), its attainability is not a question of either/or, but of sooner/later. It thus avoids definitive failure, which would have a demoralizing political effect.
But targeting zero emissions would provide clear and transparent directions for all relevant actors. It would bring out inconsistencies between talk, decisions and actions much more clearly than temperature objectives such as 2 °C or 1.5 °C can.
The UNFCCC should therefore give the target of greenhouse gas neutrality much more weight in future. It could start with the facilitative dialogue planned for 2018, whose rules are being set at the COP23 in Bonn. The dialogue is intended to boost countries’ ambitions and to lead to strengthened ‘nationally determined contributions’ under the Paris Agreement.
Read more at The World Should Go for Zero Emissions, Not Two Degrees
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