Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won't Even Save the Planet)

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When the international climate change community convened in Copenhagen in 2009 it was clear that carbon capture and storage was not going to be sufficient for two reasons. Access every new PS commentary, our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content – including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More – and the full PS archive. Our purpose is to advise the UK and devolved governments on emissions targets and to report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, it is widely believed that direct air capture, because of its exorbitant costs and energy demand, if it ever becomes feasible to be deployed at scale, will not be able to compete with BECCS with its voracious appetite for prime agricultural land. There is a distinction in British English between the two, but it is not one that is universally recognized.

Spurious ‘net zero’ and ‘carbon neutrality’ claims are incredibly damaging,” explains CMW’s Lead on Global Carbon Markets Gilles Dufrasne. There were no carbon capture and storage facilities in operation on any coal fired power station and no prospect the technology was going to have any impact on rising emissions from increased coal use in the foreseeable future. So it was that Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage, or BECCS, rapidly emerged as the new saviour technology.

As a sustainability expert I believe most of the chapters have more or less valid points except the one of agriculture and vegan food which was not convincing.

The UK governments seemingly unique decision to make net zero by 2050 a legal target has increasingly looked like folly to me for a while and this book confirms the worst fears of this. Instead of representing everyday Aussies like you, our politicians have chosen to pander to big business and inner-city elites.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Over its three-year lifetime, it’s hoped that this demonstrator project will capture an amount of carbon approximately 1/100,000 of current global annual emissions. Microsoft has pledged to be “carbon negative” by 2030, and by 2050 it aims to have removed from the air all the CO 2 the firm has emitted since it was founded in 1975. They give the illusion that corporations are taking serious action to tackle the climate crisis when, in reality, they are sweeping the problem under the carpet and leaving it to others and future generations to clean up their mess.

Two years on, it is now abundantly clear that 'net zero' is being used by many governments and corporations as cover for business as usual. Pure madness, but there's a blind faith that only doing as much as we can (rather than far, far more than we know how) will see humanity eradicated by 2050 if we don't . Growing billions of trees would consume vast amounts of water – in some places where people are already thirsty. This devastating and detailed demolition of the case for committing Britain to Net Zero should be compulsory reading for everybody in government and the media. If we want to keep people safe then large and sustained cuts to carbon emissions need to happen now.Thus, EU policymakers must instate a complete prohibition on all claims of climate or environment-related neutrality or related variations, such as “carbon neutral”, “CO2 neutral”, “CO2 compensated”, “climate positive”, “net zero”, etc. Ross Clark argues that it is a terrible mistake, an impractical hostage to fortune which will have massive downsides. The only way to keep humanity safe is the immediate and sustained radical cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in a socially just way.