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Equity implications of net zero visions

Climatic Change volume 169, Article number: 20 (2021) Cite this article

Abstract

With national governments almost universally pledging to achieve net zero emissions, a key uncertainty is how net zero policies will affect global equity. It is unclear which policy measures are available for achieving net zero equitably, what the social and environmental implications of these measures will be under global pathways, or how they might be implemented in ways that advance rather than undermine equity. By means of three stylized future pathways, we show that there are potentially serious international and domestic equity effects from global net zero policies, as well as opportunities to achieve an equitable net zero future for all through appropriate policy design.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.iea.org/commentaries/cop26-climate-pledges-could-help-limit-global-warming-to-1-8-c-but-implementing-them-will-be-the-key; https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/

  2. 2.

    This difference in ambition shifts the net zero milestone by at least a decade - a fact which appears absent from public discourse to date.

  3. 3.

    According to the Net Zero Tracker data, the level of official commitment ranges from being enshrined in law (13 countries), legislation under consideration (3 countries), in an official policy document (53 countries), or in active discussion (76 countries).

  4. 4.

    Future work could compare the equity implications of scenarios for net zero CO2 against net zero GHGs.

  5. 5.

    These two categories are inspired by but differ slightly from Caney’s (2014) distinction between “harm avoidance justice” and “burden-sharing justice”.

  6. 6.

    We refer to ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries following the UNFCCC. We also take into account that in the spirit of Paris Agreement, developed countries are obliged to lead mitigation and climate finance, while emerging economies are invited to contribute on a voluntary basis. Thus, the dichotomy between Annex I and Non-Annex I countries is not the only reference point for the CBDR&RC.

  7. 7.

    See https://theconversation.com/after-net-zero-we-will-need-to-go-much-further-and-clean-up-historic-emissions-162332.

  8. 8.

    In our stylized pathways, we depict the share of CDR undertaken by OECD and non-OECD countries based on the equity principle of cumulative historic emissions, as reported in Fyson et al. (2020).

  9. 9.

    We focus on CO2 emissions alone. All pathways result in cumulative emissions of 525 GtCO2 over the course of the century, which is close to the budget to stay below warming of 1.5 °C with a probability of 50% (see Table A1 in the Appendix). These pathways serve to illustrate different possibilities for remaining within a given cumulative emissions budget by 2100.

  10. 10.

    For such quantified scenarios, see Rogelj et al. (2018).

  11. 11.

    Shue (1993) coined the term ‘subsistence emissions’ but never endorsed the substantive view that became associated with it.

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Funding

Dominic Lenzi’s research was supported by the RIVET project, funded by Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas (grant number: 2020–00202).

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Affiliations

  1. University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Dominic Lenzi & Michael Jakob

  2. Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany

    Matthias Honegger

  3. Stiftung Wissenschaft Und Politik, Berlin, Germany

    Suzanne Droege

  4. Arctic University of Tromso, Tromso, Norway

    Jennifer C. Heyward

  5. Oxford Geoengineering Programme, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Tim Kruger

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  1. Dominic Lenzi
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  2. Michael Jakob
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Correspondence to Dominic Lenzi.

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Lenzi, D., Jakob, M., Honegger, M. et al. Equity implications of net zero visions. Climatic Change 169, 20 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03270-2

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Keywords

  • Equity
  • Net zero
  • Justice
  • Border carbon adjustments
  • Carbon dioxide removal
  • International transfers