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Yes, we are talking about Net Zero in the context of climate change…
Simply put: in order to prevent the permanent damages of global warming, the world has to reach Net Zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the Year 2050. This means reducing human-caused GHG emissions to the lowest levels possible, and balancing any remaining emissions by permanently erasing an equivalent quantity of GHGs from the environment…Going further, the world must ensure that GHG removal exceeds emissions…
So, how can the world transition to Net Zero…read on…
A just transition is required
Achieving net zero will require a fundamental transformation of global energy and industrial systems, transportation, infrastructure, forestry and agriculture, and overall land usage. In addition, sustainable GHG emissions reduction must also contribute to broad economic development, not at the expense of vulnerable groups, but in a way that ensures a just transition for all.
Transparent planning
Having clearly defined 5-15 years objectives is necessary to propel immediate action and investments towards prioritized and identified sectors, where technological transformations are required. Both Governments and Private Sector Corporations must adopt separate GHG emissions reduction and removal targets. These would lead to greater accountability by ensuring a separate evaluation of the progress of each party, which would be superior to a combo-metric of progress that might hide any insufficient efforts to reduce GHG emissions.
The magic number of climate change solutions that you need to know
Include carbon pricing
Develop a green development toolkit that has an appropriate inclusion of carbon pricing within it. Both Governments and Private Sector Corporations must promote internal or shadow carbon pricing when evaluating any investment decisions, which will in turn encourage the preferred investments and infrastructure choices when implementing overall and sector-based net-zero strategies.
Complementary government policies
These are also needed to reduce GHG emissions in some sectors, such as energy-efficiency standards being promulgated for buildings or for fuel in vehicles. Government subsidies or investments in R&D (research & development) might be needed to support technical transformations, especially in industries where GHG emissions-reduction options are either not available or are expensive.
Set stiff net zero targets
Carbon prices will need to be set much higher than they are currently, and also increase over time, in order to ultimately drive the reduction and removal required to reach net zero.
Conclusion
The good news is that many countries, corporations, and financial institutions are stepping up to the challenge of net zero, and many have pledged to achieve net zero GHG emissions by Year 2050. The World Bank has also set up a Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition Task Force on Net Zero that is working on implementing robust safeguards to ensure accountability of all parties.
In the coming years, the Net Zero journey will indeed be interesting to watch and hopefully, it will succeed, in the interest of everyone on our planet…
