Net zero emissions by 2050 prioritise mitigation for climate stabilisation. Pledges to achieve this still distant target have grown but inadvertently delay urgently needed climate action in the near term.
Net Zero
The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) committed to “the stabilization of greenhouse gas [GHG] concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [or human-caused] interference with the climate system”.
Consequently, climate negotiations are supposed to focus on stepping up mitigation efforts. But thus bringing the target forward will not prevent global temperatures from rising 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels well before 2050.
Since the 2021 UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) in Glasgow, many governments have promised to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 touted as achieving climate stabilisation.
After reneging on various other Glasgow commitments, such as ending coal burning for energy, G7 Western leaders piously reiterated the ‘Net Zero by 2050’ promise in April 2024.
The Net Zero target seeks to end further GHG emissions accumulation by mid-century. Thus, Net Zero requires cutting GHG emissions and accumulation well before the century’s ending 2100, the previous target year.
Worse, the agreement allows notable exemptions which are hardly trivial. GHG emissions calculations exclude exemptions, e.g., for military purposes, air and marine transportation. The US alone accounts for a trillion dollars, or two-fifths of world military spending of around 2.5 trillion dollars yearly.
Meanwhile, invoking the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ (CBDR) principle, some developing countries have bargained for more time, e.g., India has announced a 2070 deadline.
Nice slogan, but inadequate
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on keeping warming under 1.5°C was used to advocate for the net zero by 2050 target.
Net zero by 2050 offers an attractively simple target for climate stabilisation. If fully enforced, net zero should stabilise the climate from 2050, but will certainly not check global warming in time.
As politicians, government leaders have been more willing to make pledges far off into the future. After all, the year 2050 was almost three decades after the Glasgow COP in 2021.
Net zero had first appeared at the UNFCCC’s 2014 Emissions Gap Report and at the UNFCCC COP then. World Bank President Jim Kim proclaimed then, “we must achieve zero net emissions of greenhouse gases before 2100”.
The 2015 Paris Agreement committed to “undertake rapid [emissions] reductions … to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removal by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century”.
Hence, the new 2050 target year is a significant improvement over earlier target years, but will not urgently cut GHG emissions in time to avoid breaching the 1.5°C threshold.
Net zero sinks
Removing GHGs will trap and absorb less heat in Earth’s atmosphere. Net zero has revived hope in carbon sinks with little recognition that most consequences of climate change, especially global warming, are largely irreversible.
Many carbon sequestration proponents believe ‘carbon dioxide removal’ and ‘negative emissions’ technologies will be enough. These include carbon capture and storage, topsoil carbon sequestration, largescale tree planting and reforestation, with more controversial ‘geoengineering’ schemes touted more recently.
The IPCC Special Report warned that while some options might be technologically feasible, many have not proved viable at scale. There is also no scientific basis for claims that global warming’s worse effects can be reversed.
The International Energy Agency’s revised Net Zero Roadmap for the 2023 Dubai COP led the UNFCCC to endorse “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”.
But regardless of advocates’ intentions, mitigation measures have been abused for greenwashing. The 2023 Emissions Gap Report noted the gap between promises and practices has worsened.
Some net-zero advocates want to make State parties more accountable by proposing a new legally binding agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, abandoned by most rich nation governments following US Senate rejection.
Temperature targets
Governments pledged to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming under 1.5°C. But UN Climate Action and Finance Special Envoy Mark Carney expects the threshold to be breached in under a decade, well before 2050!
Over recent decades, the climate policy targets discourse has gone from emissions reduction to limiting temperature warming above pre-industrial levels.
The European Union adopted the two degrees Celsius (2°C) threshold in 1996, insisting it should be for all. However, some of the most vulnerable developing countries, mainly in the tropics, successfully insisted on 1.5°C.
The IPCC argued in 2014 that warming under 2°C would require “near zero emissions of carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gases by the end of the century”. Carbon budget projections have improved with better GHG emissions and atmospheric persistence monitoring techniques.
Following sustained efforts by some developing countries, led by some of the most vulnerable, a later IPCC Special Report urged keeping global warming under 1.5°C. Low-lying island nations rallied around “1.5°C to stay alive”, with many calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to phase them out.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram is a prominent Malaysian economist. He is senior adviser at the Khazanah Research Institute, visiting fellow at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, and adjunct professor at the International Islamic University.
