PLEA Network

7 November 2025, The Guardian: Net zero is an insidious loophole that distracts from the scientific imperative to eliminate fossil fuels. History tells us that polite incrementalism and political kowtowing will prevail at Cop30 – even as catastrophe unfolds around us. Despite 30 years of UN climate summits, about half of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution has been emitted since 1990. Incidentally, 1990 was the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the global authority on climate change science – released its First Assessment Report confirming the threat of human-caused global warming. As scientists all over the world prepare the IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report, we do so knowing that our work is still being overshadowed by politics. Despite all the well-intentioned half-measures, the truth is that the world is still disastrously off track to limit dangerous climate change. In the avalanche of technical reports released before Cop30, the World Meteorological Organization stated that CO₂ concentrations reached a record high of 423.9 parts per million in 2024, with the growth rate from 2023 to 2024 surging by the largest yearly increase since modern measurements began in 1957. The latest figures from Global Carbon Project show that 90% of total global CO₂ emissions in 2024 were generated from the burning of fossil fuels, with the remaining 10% coming from land-use changes including deforestation and wildfires. Instead of focusing on economic incentives to encourage the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, climate policies are heavily reliant on feelgood “nature positive” solutions that aim to neutralise carbon emissions by essentially planting trees instead of reducing industrial emissions. While the protection, expansion and rehabilitation of natural carbon sinks like forests and wetlands is an inherently good thing to do, researchers have shown that there is not enough land to meet the global goal of net zero emissions using nature-based solutions alone. Read more here