What Does It Mean To Be Committed To ‘net Zero’? The Minefield podcast

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What does it mean to be committed to ‘net zero’?

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At the end of July, there was a strange juxtaposition of events that seemed almost designed to highlight the fault-lines which run through the political, legal, economic and ethical responses to climate change.

On 23 July, the International Court of Justice handed down a non-binding advisory opinion that climate change constitutes an “urgent and existential threat”, that nations have an obligation to prevent climate change, and that the “failure of a state to take appropriate action to protect the climate system … may constitute an internationally wrongful act”.

Just days later, two former leaders of the National Party — Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack — used the first parliamentary sitting week to prosecute their plan to see Australia abandon its commitment to reach its net zero emissions target by 2050. Their claim is that consumers, particularly those in the regions, will be made to bear the cost for honouring a commitment that means precious little when compared to the world’s major polluters. Net zero is thus a masochistic policy that amounts to little more than “virtue signalling” on the part of those who will not have to wear the consequences.

Others have argued, though not quite so stridently, that “net zero” has achieved a kind of talismanic status — a morally pleasing target that expresses a certain moral seriousness and cannot help but hurl opprobrium at those who raise questions as to how realistically it can be reached and who will have to bear the brunt of costs. And climate scepticism aside, Joyce and McCormack have at least brought to the fore the tension between appearance and reality which has motivated a sizeable number of companies to leave Australia’s carbon credit market altogether over concerns for its efficacy and integrity.

There have long been concerns that “net zero” is more like an accounting tool (hence the language of “offsets” and “credit markets”) than a substantive measure to both reduce carbon emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere on an enormous scale — for it is only such coordinated, collective action that can hope to mitigate peak global temperatures and slow warming trends. Which is to say, it is only such action that can rise to the call to “responsibility” envisioned by the International Court of Justice.

What, then, would it mean for Australia to honour its commitment to “net zero”, in substance and not just symbolically? What are the mechanisms, beyond the transition to renewable sources of energy and the existence of a well-functioning carbon market, that should be countenanced?

You can read an analysis by Garrett Cullity and Christian Barry of the criticisms directed at “net zero” on ABC Religion & Ethics.

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