What is Net Zero?

Is this target key to helping us saving the planet?

• In 2015, nearly 200 nations submitted plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Paris Agreement in a bid to slow global warming.
• Five years later, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said they had to go further and recommended cutting global emissions to net-zero to keep warming below 1.5 degrees.
• Net zero refers to the goal of reaching a balance between the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere and the amount removed.
• This means reducing how much CO2 we emit but also turning over vast areas of land to natural forms of carbon sequestration like forests and wetlands.
• The greatest emitters of CO2 are China, the USA and the EU but this will mean radical global changes in how we structure our economies and our lives.