Destination Net Zero:Setting and Delivering Ambitious, Credible Targets

COP26 Universities Network Briefing / march 2021 Destination net zero: setting and delivering ambitious, credible targets

Key messages • Stabilising global temperatures at any level requires reaching net zero emissions. Stabilising at 1.5°C

would mean reaching net zero global emissions of CO2 by mid-century and substantial reduction of other greenhouse gas emissions; the Paris Agreement also commits to a balance in human-caused sources and sinks of all greenhouse gases in the second half of the century. • Net zero means balancing emissions (sources) with removals (sinks), which requires deep and widespread emissions cuts, as well as scaling up both nature-based and technological removal methods. • Allied to net zero targets, immediate reductions of greenhouse gas emissions are essential, as global temperature rise is driven by cumulative carbon dioxide emissions over time. Reductions in emissions at source (as opposed to offsets and removals) should form the bulk of action to achieve net zero targets. • Individual net zero targets and the pathways to achieve them should be driven by considerations of responsibility and capacity. To reflect their equity obligations under the Paris Agreement, industrialised nations should, as a matter of best practice, consider setting targets for delivering net zero before 2050. • In order to be truly comprehensive, net zero targets should include all seven greenhouse gas groups

reported under national inventories (while ensuring net zero CO2 specifically) and cover all economic sectors of activity. • Plans should be specified for how an agreed net zero target will be delivered, and immediate policy action should be taken to put them on track. These plans should be published, as should regular updates on progress towards achieving them. • An encouraging number of net zero targets are being set by national governments, regional, local and city governments, businesses, universities and third sector organisations. COP26 is an opportunity for more commitments to be made, and for ensuring targets are backed up by plans for delivery. • Net zero targets and near-term actions to implement them can be expected to produce a range of benefits – as well as co-benefits – to those who adopt them.

Introduction Agreement. They provide a clear deadline for creating a zero-carbon economy, giving certainty and clarity Net zero emissions targets have gained traction for planners, industry, investors and consumers. in the global effort to halt climate change1. In 2019, Similarly, businesses and other organisations benefit the UK became the first of the G7 nations to make from setting their own net zero targets by providing a legally binding commitment to reaching net zero accountability to their stakeholders that they are greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Of the G20, China changing their operations at the scale and pace has recently committed to carbon neutrality by 2060, needed for alignment with the Paris Agreement. while South Korea and Japan have committed to net zero emissions by 2050. At least 53% of gross As the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis continue to be domestic product (GDP) is now produced in countries, acutely felt, a net zero emissions transformation can regions or cities where net zero emissions targets have also significantly aid economic recovery. Sustainable either been agreed or are being proposed2. recovery policies could, if well designed, create more jobs, deliver higher short-term returns per Setting strong, ambitious targets for achieving net pound spent and higher long-term cost savings, zero emissions enables governments at national, in comparison to traditional fiscal stimulus. regional and city level to clearly align with the Paris

Destination net zero: setting and delivering ambitious, credible targets 1 They could also produce clear ‘co-benefits’ in terms of e.g. reduced urban air pollution, which is Box 1: Net zero carbon emissions and associated with increased morbidity and mortality ‘carbon neutrality’ rates. All of this makes embedding net zero targets Stopping CO emissions from causing global into future economic planning an even more 2 warming is a minimum requirement for halting compelling approach3. total human-induced warming. This requires

However, a net zero target is only as strong as the a global balance between CO2 emissions and action to deliver on it. Meeting the Paris Agreement CO2 removal (i.e. ‘net zero’ CO2 emissions); goal by setting a net-zero target is ultimately path also known as ‘carbon neutrality’. This balance dependent, and contingent on short term measures must be sustainable, permanent and resilient to reduce CO2 emissions sufficiently in line with the to climate change. global carbon budget4. Current approaches to achieving net zero CO2 This briefing sets out the science behind net zero often rely on balancing out fossil-fuel emissions targets and the considerations that policymakers with offsetting through biosphere carbon storage and industry leaders should take when adopting and (such as through afforestation). However, such implementing such targets to represent the highest large-scale conversion between fundamentally ambition in both planning and delivery. different carbon reservoirs may not be sustainable over multi-decadal timescales, particularly should The science of net zero global warming itself cause carbon stored in the 6 The Paris Agreement stipulates a long-term biosphere to be re-emitted to the atmosphere . temperature goal to keep global warming to well As such, reaching ‘sustainable and permanent below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C net zero’ will require changes to future offsetting above pre-industrial levels. and removal strategies, including ensuring they are resilient to current and future impacts of Article 4 of the Agreement states that this must be climate change. achieved by reaching a balance between sources and sinks of greenhouse gases from human activities in the second half of this century;a,5 what is commonly continue to rise up to that point, and sea levels will 7 known as ‘net zero’ emissions. continue to rise for many years beyond . The impacts of the current 1°C of global warming – such as on wildfires, heatwaves and flooding – are The ‘net’ in net zero targets already playing out across the globe and will become The emphasis on ‘net zero’, rather than simply ‘zero’ more severe with any increases in global temperature. – i.e. ending greenhouse gas emissions fully at the Aiming for the more ambitious Paris Agreement source – stems from the difficulty of achieving the temperature target – namely 1.5°C above pre- latter by 2050. industrial levels – significantly reduces the risks and Even if all measures to reduce greenhouse gas impacts of further climate change4. emissions are rolled out immediately, it is likely that Answering the question of what it will take to achieve some emissions will remain difficult to phase out this, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s completely, such as those from some industrial (IPCC) 2018 Special Report on the impacts of 1.5°C of activities, agriculture and aviation sectors. In a net global warming showed that global emissions must zero emissions future, any residual emissions would be reach their peak immediately and then fall rapidly balanced by removals from the atmosphere through technological and nature-based solutions8. over the following decades. CO2 emissions dominate the climate impact from human activities and have However, there are significant uncertainties in large- a cumulative effect on temperature, so they must scale removal of greenhouse gases. Technological reach net zero for global temperatures to stabilise at solutions such as Direct Air Carbon Capture and any given level. To limit warming to 1.5°C, this will need Storage (DACCS), a process in which carbon dioxide to happen by 2050. Other greenhouse gas emissions is chemically trapped from the air, concentrated, and will need to be reduced substantially by this point as piped to geological stores, are still expensive and are well and continue to fall thereafter, with the IPCC still untested for large-scale use. calculating that net zero greenhouse gas emissions will need to be achieved around 2065. For nature-based solutions, relying on tree planting to reach net zero targets would require large amounts of Importantly, targeting net zero emissions does not land, posing risks for biodiversity and food production9. negate the need for substantial efforts on adaptation In addition, there are issues of long-term sustainability and resilience-building measures. Even if the world of using biosphere carbon storage to offset fossil fuel achieves net zero emissions, global temperature will carbon emissions, as explained in Box 1. a How natural and human-caused fluxes are disentangled is still a point of discussion.

Destination net zero: setting and delivering ambitious, credible targets 2 As such, any net zero target must ultimately When countries set their target dates for will depend involve a targeted plan to bring emissions down on their specific context.On the basis of the Paris as much as possible in absolute terms, across Agreement principles that developed nations all economic sectors, alongside innovating and should lead the effort on climate change, there testing technologies both for removal and for is a strong equity-based case for industrialised hard-to-treat emissions. nations to set net zero greenhouse gas emissions targets by an early date, such as the UK has done Net zero might now also be considered the minimum with its target for net zero greenhouse gas emissions target that is acceptable for industrialised countries, by 2050, and preferably achieve net zero carbon given their larger historical emissions and current dioxide emissions earlier than that. Such concerted contribution to climate change, as well as greater early action by these nations would provide the space capability to tackle current emissions. Crucially, the for aligning industrial development and emissions UK’s 2050 target is for ‘at least’ net zero greenhouse reduction in the rest of the world. gas emissions, while Sweden, for example, is looking to achieve negative net greenhouse gas emissions In the end, setting a target date for reaching net after reaching its 2045 net zero target. zero is likely to involve a range of considerations, the importance of which will vary by country. Setting an achievable and equitable They include a desire to take international leadership; costs of delivering a rapid net zero target versus the target date benefits and co-benefits of doing so (e.g. job creation While deciding to achieve net zero in itself is an in the green economy, achieving ‘first mover’ status in essential step to delivering on the Paris Agreement, new industries, reducing existing, often dangerously the decision on the date by which net zero must be high, levels of urban air pollution) public attitudes reached is just as important. In the end, both the towards climate change; the balance between state substantive target destination and the gradient of intervention in the economy and market forces; state the trajectory to reach it are what determine the capacity; and technological feasibility. The UNFCCC’s outcome for the climate, with interim targets crucial first Global Stocktake, scheduled for 2023, will for setting that trajectory. be a critical opportunity to assess the ambition, Although many now agree on the need for net zero completeness and consistency of national targets. targets, fewer agree on the date for when specific actors should achieve it. While the UK government Tackling the right emissions set a 2050 date based on advice from the Committee Net zero targets should include all relevant on Climate Change, the 2019 advocates of a UK greenhouse gases. As mentioned, carbon dioxide Green New Deal suggested a target date of 2030, (CO2) needs to fall to net zero in order to stop and the activist group Extinction Rebellion has warming, which makes it a crucial component of any demanded 2025. net zero target. Its long-term, cumulative effect on Deciding on the date for net zero involves a series the climate means that how soon it reaches net zero, of trade-offs with respect to where benefits and and the pathway for doing so, is also crucial. costs will fall for different parts of society. If the However, a target focussed solely on CO2 risks chosen target year is too early, it may be disruptive distorting mitigation actions and costs, and to people’s lives and livelihoods and make a ‘just potentially failing to comply with the Paris transition’, in which workers from polluting industries Agreement. Specifically, targets should include 10 are supported and reskilled, more difficult . all seven greenhouse gase groups reported under If the date is set for too far into the future, however, national inventories (i.e. CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, it could fail to give a sufficiently strong stimulus to PFCs, SF6 and NF3), commonly reported in terms of 7 mitigation in the present, and as such increase the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) . For HFCs and PFCs, risks of damaging climate impacts. These harmful disaggregated data by chemical should be provided11. impacts are not only likely to be felt unequally, Progress towards net zero is therefore represented by but a far off date may also pose problems in terms the balance of emissions and removals of all these of high-income countries bearing their fair share of gases aggregated in CO2e terms. emissions reductions in accordance with the principle As well as covering all greenhouse gases, of “common but differentiated responsibilities national net zero targets must also encompass and respective capabilities” set out in the all economic sectors. Without such economy-wide Paris Agreement. coverage, there is again a risk of severe distortion of mitigation actions, costs and overall efficacy.

Destination net zero: setting and delivering ambitious, credible targets 3 offset by international credits; and emissions from Box 2: Defining net zero greenhouse the manufacturing of goods offshore, which are gas emissions nevertheless consumed in-country. Emissions of other greenhouse gases relate to Current national reporting of greenhouse gas

global temperature differently than CO2 does, emissions (via the UNFCCC) is on a ‘production’ largely due to their differing lifetimes in the air. basis i.e. those emissions that occur within a defined When including other greenhouse gases beyond territory. As such, progress on emissions reductions

CO2 (such as methane) into targets, reaching net in the UK, for example, and the net zero target itself, zero becomes a matter not of ‘carbon neutrality’, are based on these production-based emissions. but rather of ‘climate neutrality’. Here, the In reality, the UK is responsible for greenhouse gas climate outcome from ‘net zero emissions’ emissions beyond its borders through the goods and depends on the metric used to aggregate services the country imports. For example, around emissions into a single total. half of the food consumed in the UK is produced The approach adopted by the UNFCCC – and overseas16. When setting a net zero target, hence many others – is to report all emissions in governments should provide clarity on their

terms of CO2-equivalent using the GWP100 metric. approach to what emissions will – and will not –

GWP100 (despite its name) indicates the relative be covered within the target. impact of emissions of different greenhouse gases on global temperatures in 20-40 years’ Box 3: Sub-national targets: considerations time. On timescales longer than 40 years, GWP100 overstates the temperature impact of methane for cities, organisations and companies and other short-lived greenhouse gases, while At sub-national scales, such as cities, local understating their impact on shorter timescales12. councils and companies, a key issue in setting As such, the climate outcome from maintaining a net zero target relates to what is known as the ‘scope’ of counted emissions. For businesses, net zero emissions based on GWP100 depends on the greenhouse gas mix: residual shorter-lived for instance, most targets will include Scope 1 emissions, arising on companies’ own premises, emissions balanced by CO2 removal eventually leads to cooling; on the other hand, net positive as well as Scope 2 emissions, which are those from off-site power needed to run their operations. CO2 emissions balanced by net negative emissions of shorter-lived gases (which is possible More challenging are Scope 3 emissions, which in accounting terms if offsets based on reduction are those produced across the wider supply chain, of methane emissions are used, for instance) and by clients who use a company’s product causes further warming. or service. In practice, for many cities, councils Other metrics have been proposed, some of and industries, these Scope 3 emissions will which more accurately reflect the temperature be the ones making a real difference to global outcomes of different greenhouse gas warming, and as such it is imperative that they 17 emissions 13,14. However, any “net zero” state that are considered as part of net zero planning . involves significant offsetting between emissions As with the net zero commitments of national and removals of gases with different lifetimes is governments, subnational targets should inherently unsustainable. encompass all greenhouse gases and all relevant Net zero strategies should be aware of these sectors. However, at these sub-national scales differences in climate outcome from different especially, there are major limitations in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. In order to ensure data availability, inconsistent use of scopes and temperature is stabilised, net zero targets which metrics, and capacity to plan, implement and cover all greenhouse gases should ensure that the report on net zero targets.

component of CO2 emissions specifically falls to To deliver on the UK-wide net zero target there zero or below. is now an urgent need to ensure emerging plans at these sub-national scales are robust, consistent and achievable. This must include In practice, the rules on carbon accounting for strong cooperative action by the devolved governments are set at an international level, under administrations that reflects differing contexts the umbrella of the UNFCCC15. Most remaining and capacities but that in aggregate still delivers areas of controversy relate to out-of-country a rapid, resilient and sustainable transition to net emissions including international aviation and zero for the UK as a whole18. shipping; the potential for domestic emissions to be

Destination net zero: setting and delivering ambitious, credible targets 4 Beyond the target: planning for delivery Companies and individual citizens are likely to benefit from the certainty and transparency this provides, For any business, city, country, or other organisation enabling them to plan effectively. Reporting on setting a net zero target, it is imperative to progress also means that governments can more accompany it with senior-level backing and a clear effectively be held to account, both via parliamentary plan of how it will be achieved. Plans must then process and the courts, for any failure to meet the move swiftly to set in motion the appropriate policies interim and final targets. and actions and to establish regular checks along the way to monitor and report progress against it. The UNFCCC’s Race To Zero campaign has Grasping the opportunity at COP26 summarised the following four Ps, in partnership An encouraging number of net zero targets have with experts and practitioners19: already been set, and the recent announcements of commitments by China, Japan and South Korea Pledge: Make a high-level and ambitious shows the continued momentum behind such targets commitment to reach (net-)zero in line with global and the clarity of purpose they provide20. efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. For example, the UK government has enshrined its target in legislation. There is much more to be done, however, to ensure For companies and other non-state actors, the pledge that the act of setting net zero targets helps the should be made at head-of-organisation level. world reach net zero emissions at the necessary pace. While net zero targets provide a clear and attractive Plan: Set out what activities will be undertaken to framing of ambition – whether at government, achieve net zero, especially in the short-to medium- sub-national or organisational level – their delivery term. Set interim targets to meet in the next decade, requires sustained action across decades, starting which reflects a fair share of the required 50% global with immediate action now. reduction in CO2 by 2030, identified in the 2018 IPCC Special Report as necessary to keep warming to 1.5°C. COP26 will be a moment for bringing forward more commitments and putting all countries and Proceed: Act immediately toward delivering on organisations on track to reach net zero emissions the net zero plan across all sectors, consistent with and achieve the Paris Agreement. It will also be a reaching any interim targets which have been set out. moment to ensure that all targets are transparent Publish: Commit to report progress at least annually. and evidence-based and have a clear and coherent All national governments report to the UNFCCC, plan for how they will be delivered. and all other actors should consider including reporting via platforms that feed into the UNFCCC Global Climate Action Portal, if possible.

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Destination net zero: setting and delivering ambitious, credible targets 6 The COP26 Universities Network This briefing is produced in association with the COP26 Universities Network, a growing group of more than 50 UK-based universities working together to help deliver an ambitious outcome at the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow and beyond. The briefing represents the views of its authors (listed on page one) and not necessarily that of every University or institution participating in the network. For more information about the COP26 Universities Network, please contact [email protected]

Priestley International Centre for Climate

Destination net zero: setting and delivering ambitious, credible targets 7