Following a groundswell of voluntary net-zero targets by companies, regulators are increasingly introducing mandatory rules. If governments can overcome the barriers to rigour, coherence and fairness, such mandatory ‘ground rules’ have the potential to overcome the obstructionism that holds back a just climate transition.
References
Allen, M. R. et al. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 47, 849–887 (2022).
Fankhauser, S. et al. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 15–21 (2022).
Hale, T. et al. Clim. Policy 22, 18–29 (2022).
Rogelj, J. et al. Science 380, 1014–1016 (2023).
Lang, J. et al. Net Zero Tracker (Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, Data-Driven EnviroLab, NewClimate Institute & Oxford Net Zero, 2024); https://zerotracker.net/methodology
Armour, J., Enriques, L. & Wetzer, T. Ariz. Law Rev. 65, 285–336 (2023).
Net Zero Tracker Everybody’s Business: The Net Zero Blind Spot (Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, Data-Driven EnviroLab, NewClimate Institute & Oxford Net Zero, 2022).
Hale, T. The Net-Zero Governance Conveyor Belt (Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, 2022).
Progress Report on Climate-Related Disclosures (FSB, 2023).
Snoep, M. J. Antitrust Enforc. 11, 1–4 (2023).
Wiseman, H. J., Klass, A., Macey, J. & Welton, S. Stanford Law Rev. 74, 969–1071 (2022).
Dubash, N. K. Science https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk7428 (2023).
Rogelj, J., Geden, O., Cowie, A. & Reisinger, A. Nature 591, 365–368 (2021).
Rajamani, L. et al. Clim. Policy 21, 983–1004 (2021).
Emissions Gap Report 2023: Broken Record — Temperatures Hit New Highs, yet World Fails to Cut Emissions (Again) (UNEP, 2023).
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Oxford Martin School for supporting this work. T.H., T.W., S.K.A., M.A., K.A., B.C., S.F., C.H., L.R. and S.S. are part of Oxford Net Zero, which is supported by the University of Oxford’s Strategic Research Fund.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
The production of this paper was coordinated by T.H. and T.W., who also had overall editorial responsibility. Drafting was led by T.H., T.W., L.D. and R.S.-S. Data gathering and analysis for the table was carried out by L.D. and K.A. All authors contributed to the content, structure and framing of the article.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Data collection methodology for Box 1 table.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hale, T., Wetzer, T., Abebe, S.K. et al. Turning a groundswell of climate action into ground rules for net zero. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 306–308 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01967-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01967-7
- Springer Nature Limited