Net-Zero Emissions

Net-Zero Emissions

Subject – Environment

Context – India must commit to net zero emissions. The country will need to take a stand on climate change action or risk being cast globally as an outlier.

Concept –

• ‘Net zero emissions’ refers to achieving an overall balance between greenhouse gas emissions produced and greenhouse gas emissions taken out of the atmosphere.
• Net zero or carbon neutrality is when more carbon is sucked out from the atmosphere or prevented from being emitted than what a country emits and is critical to ensuring that the planet does not heat up an additional half a degree by 2100.
• To reach “zero net emissions” and limit global warming to 1.5°C, it is necessary to remove and permanently store CO₂ from the atmosphere. This is called Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR). As it is the opposite of emissions, these practices or technologies are often described as achieving “negative emissions” or “sinks“.
  • There is a direct link between zero net emissions and CDR: The earlier zero net emissions are achieved, the less CDR is necessary.
  • Therefore, the projected amount of required CDR over the 21st century varies from 100 to 1’000 Gt CO₂.
• Bhutan and Suriname are the only carbon neutral countries in the world.

What does net-zero mean?

• Net-zero, which is also referred to as carbon-neutrality, does not mean that a country would bring down its emissions to zero.
• Gross-zero means reaching a state where there are no emissions at all.
• Therefore, net-zero is a state in which a country’s emissions are compensated by absorption and removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
• One way by which carbon can be absorbed is by creating carbon sinks.

CDR can be divided into the three main groups: biological, technological and geochemical processes –

1. Biological CDR enlarges natural sinks and includes several measures. Examples are:
   • Afforestation, e. large-scale plantation of trees, and sustainable forest management which store carbon in soil and biomass.
   • Adapted land management to increase and permanently fix C from atmospheric CO2 in the soil. One example through the incorporation of crop residues, reduced tillage, or even is to renature peatlands.
   • Pyrolysis of biomass to form charcoal (biochar) that keeps carbon in the soil for many years.

2. Examples of technological CDR are:
   • Removing CO2 directly from the exhaust gases of industrial processes and storing it elsewhere, e.g. underground (Direct Air Capture with Carbon Storage, “DACCS”).
   • Bioenergy utilization in combination with carbon capture and storage means burning biomass in power plants, immediately capturing the CO2 underground (Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage, “BECCS”). This process combines biological and technological CDR.

3. Geochemical CDR includes measures such as:
   • Enhanced weathering
   • Increasing ocean productivity.

Countries that have announced net-zero Targets (Some Examples):

• The European Union has a plan, called “Fit for 55”, to deliver the carbon neutrality goal.
• China also announced that it would become net-zero by the year 2060 and that it would not allow its emissions to peak beyond what they are in 2030.
• The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) has released its Net Zero Emissions (NZE) Roadmap – named ‘Net Zero by 2050’.

NGO Oxfam Report

NGO Oxfam has said that ‘net zero’ carbon targets that many countries have announced may be a “dangerous distraction” from the priority of cutting carbon emissions.

• “Land-hungry ‘net zero’ schemes could force an 80 per cent rise in global food prices and more hunger while allowing rich nations and corporates to continue “dirty business-as-usual,” Oxfam has said in a new report titled “Tightening the Net”.
• The report says that if the challenge of change is tackled only by way of planting more trees, then about 1.6 billion hectares of new forests would be required to remove the world’s excess carbon emissions by the year 2050.
• Further, it says that to limit global warming below 1.5°C and to prevent irreversible damage from climate change, the world needs to collectively be on track and should aim to cut emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 from 2010 levels, “with the sharpest being made by the biggest emitters.”
• “Oxfam’s report shows that if the entire energy sector whose emissions continue to soar, were to set similar ‘net-zero’ targets, it would require an area of land nearly the size of the Amazon rainforest, equivalent to a third of all farmland worldwide.

Why does India object to net-zero emissions?

• India is the one opposing this target because it is likely to be the most impacted by it.
• Over the next two to three decades, India’s emissions are likely to grow at the fastest pace in the world, as it presses for higher growth to pull hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
• No amount of afforestation or reforestation would be able to compensate for the increased emissions.
• The net-zero goals do not figure in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the new global architecture to fight climate change.
• India has been arguing that instead of opening up a parallel discussion on net-zero targets outside of the Paris Agreement framework, countries must focus on delivering on what they have already promised in Paris Agreement.