Net Zero, Net Positive or a Waste of Time?

Having been invited to comment on Net Zero for media this morning I wanted to write a little more about it. Net Zero is a useful ambition, but it becomes dangerous when it is treated as an accounting exercise rather than a commitment to reduce harm.

An airline can continue burning jet fuel and then pay a third party to plant trees or rewild land elsewhere. On paper, the carbon has been offset and the Net Zero box has been ticked. In reality, the emissions have still entered the atmosphere.

Offsetting can also create consequences that are missing from the calculation. When productive land is bought for carbon schemes, it can reduce the land available for food, push up prices and increase reliance on imports. Poorly chosen planting can affect water availability, local livelihoods and biodiversity. Moving the impact from one place to another does not make it disappear.

The problem is not trees, rewilding or the intention behind Net Zero. The problem is using them as permission to continue business as usual.

We need to move from offsetting damage to preventing it. That means rewarding businesses for genuinely reducing emissions, supporting locally appropriate food production, cutting waste and giving landowners incentives to steward soil, water, woodland and wildlife together.

A genuinely circular economy does not simply compensate for waste at the end. It designs waste and unnecessary damage out of the system from the beginning.

Net Zero should be a direction of travel, not a convenient destination on a spreadsheet.