Climate action urgency vs long-term net-zero goals

🌡️ What happens if we exceed the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 °C limit? and how do we bring temperatures back down? Overshoot is the term used for scenarios where global warming temporarily surpasses 1.5 °C before being lowered again through deep emission cuts and large-scale carbon removal. The first-ever international conference on climate overshoot was held in Laxenburg, Austria to explore one of the most uncomfortable questions in climate science. 🌱 Net-negative is the new net-zero. Limiting warming in the long term means removing more CO₂ than we emit. Yet, most countries still lack quantified net-negative targets. 🧪 Carbon removal is a necessity not a licence to delay. It must “enable ambition,” not excuse inaction, and we urgently need more knowledge about its risks, impacts, and equity dimensions. ⚖️ Overshoot has irreversible consequences. Even a temporary exceedance could trigger glacier melt, species extinction, and sea-level rise. A 0.1–0.3 °C overshoot could lead to 15 % more heat-related deaths this century. 📜 Ambition must remain high, and nations will likely be expected to go beyond net-zero. Delayed action today means heavier burdens and greater legal liability tomorrow. Communicating this reality is one of our greatest challenges. How do we explain that 1.5 °C remains the goal even if we cross it? The answer is by making it clear that overshoot is the emergency response to decades of insufficient action. 🌍 The message is sobering but empowering: We have not lost the fight but winning now requires removing as much as we emit, repairing what we’ve damaged, and protecting what we still can. The era of overshoot is not an excuse for delay. It’s a call to radical ambition — faster, fairer, and deeper than ever before. Read more the Carbon Brief coverage: https://lnkd.in/eHCCFD4g

🌍 The way we are approaching, encouraging, and assessing #NetZero—through NDCs, corporate targets, and carbon accounting—is not just inherently insufficient, it is actively counterproductive. Net zero is an atmospheric imperative. Achieving it requires: • Decarbonizing the world’s energy, industrial, and food systems • Enhancing the absorptive capacity of the world’s carbon sinks Transforming these systems requires: • Clear roadmaps • Technological innovation • Adequate public and private finance • And coordinated action among public and private actors across sectors, borders, and value chains Our dominant frameworks—focused on individual country and corporate target-setting, measurement, and accounting—falsely assume that systemic, regional, and sectoral transitions can be delivered by the sum of individual targets and plans. This flawed logic disincentivizes the coordination needed. Rather than identifying an entity’s leverage to address systemic barriers to decarbonization, both countries and companies, which cannot decarbonize on their own, purchase offsets so they can methodologically “claim” to be net zero while continuing to emit, increasing rather than decreasing atmospheric GHGs. This has also led to a reliance on credits to fund nature-based and technological solutions that need substantially more and reliable financing. We’ve built an entire architecture around the wrong unit of ambition and analysis, and we are now fixing symptoms (to make the accounting more credible), not confronting the underlying structural misalignment. Accelerating climate action requires decisively shifting from individual targets to coordinated, transformative planning and implementation. This means: 🔁 Prioritizing and supporting Long-Term Low-Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS), which are inherently more ambitious and pragmatic than NDCs. 🛤 Supporting scenario planning and sectoral roadmaps, not just insisting on more ambitious NDCs and FF phase-outs. In many EMDEs, there aren’t clear technical roadmaps for how FF-based energy can be replaced reliably and financed affordably. 🤝 Facilitating coordination across regions, value chains, and stakeholders, not emphasizing individual action. 💸 ensuring adequate and affordable financing for the necessary transitions. (Note: private capital doesn’t move because of better carbon accounting, risk metrics, or pressure. It moves when transitions become financeable: - Enabled by clear roadmaps and aligned policy and regulations - Structured through investable market design by coordinating demand and supply - Supported by public finance and tailored risk mitigation) As we head into New York Climate Week, I hope we focus less on statements of ambition (NDCs and corporate targets) and more on rigorous, technically grounded transition pathways—and the collaborative, cross-sector engagement required to deliver them. The stakes are too high to keep solving the wrong problem.

The Evolution of Net Zero 🌍 The concept of net zero has evolved from a scientific insight into a central framework for guiding climate action. It has been adopted by governments, companies and institutions worldwide, becoming a shared point of reference for long-term planning. But as the concept has gained visibility, concerns about its credibility and impact have become more pronounced. Major milestones have supported this evolution. Global agreements like the Paris Agreement, new national laws and growing corporate commitments have helped position net zero as a common goal. Scientific assessments have repeatedly shown that reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions is essential to limit warming and prevent dangerous climate disruption. Despite this momentum, action remains insufficient. While the number of targets continues to grow, many lack transparency, clear scope or meaningful interim goals. Without credible implementation plans, net zero runs the risk of becoming a promise without delivery. The gap between ambition and reality is closing rapidly. Emissions continue to rise in key sectors, and the latest global stocktakes confirm that current national plans are not aligned with the temperature goals set in the Paris Agreement. More ambitious action is urgently required. As expectations increase, so does scrutiny. New standards have emerged to evaluate whether targets are science based, comprehensive and supported by near-term actions. These tools are essential but not enough on their own. Better regulation, consistent data and stronger accountability mechanisms are needed. There is a growing concern that net zero is being used as a communications tool instead of a strategy for real transformation. Delayed action today will lead to deeper economic and environmental consequences in the near future. What is required now is a shift from target setting to target delivery. Countries and companies must move from intention to execution, with transparent roadmaps and structural changes across operations and value chains. Net zero remains a critical framework for climate ambition. But its true value will depend on how effectively it drives immediate, credible and sustained action. The window for meaningful progress is rapidly closing. Source: Zero tracker #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg

2 types of corporate climate claims: Commitment vs Achievement 1. Commitment claims These are about committing to achieve targets in the future (often 2040 or 2050). Net zero targets, as set out by SBTi, ISO, Race to Zero, and other large voluntary standard setters, are a great example. These targets don't say much about what climate progress the company has achieved so far. 2. Achievement claims These are about recognizing climate action today. They include carbon neutral certification, VCMI Carbon Integrity Claims, and beyond value chain mitigation actions. Commitment claims are ambitious and pull us forward; achievement claims celebrate work done today. The risk of over-indexing on commitment claims is that they never materialize, and companies delay, or quietly sunset commitments long before they're achieved. HSBC's announcement yesterday that it has pushed out its net zero date by two decades is an example of this; and I suspect missing long-term targets may become more common. Pairing commitment + achievement claims maintains high ambitions and ensures climate action today. Many achievement claims do this already - eg - ISO carbon neutral, VCMI Carbon Integrity both require companies to set science-aligned, long-term targets while supporting present-day climate work. There is a time value to climate action: Acting on climate today is more beneficial than waiting until tomorrow. It's a miss for the climate if we focus only on lofty future commitments, but fail to hold ourselves to present-day action. Note - The chart is my own adaptation of a similar chart from Climate Impact Partners' 2023 report, The Landscape of Corporate Climate Claims. The 2023 report is no longer available online, but you can check out the 2024 version with analysis across several standards; 🔗 in comments.