Real Zero, net zero, and the European Commission’s proposal for a Carbon Removal Certification Framework
To avoid the worst effects of climate chaos—the worst human rights crisis of our time— we must radically transform, equitably and justly, the way we produce our food, manage our ecosystems, and power our economies. To stand any shot of keeping below 1.5 °C of warming and have a chance at saving our communities and ecosystems from experiencing worsening climate impacts, we must urgently deploy real and proven, socially just and people-led climate solutions and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions at source, down to Real Zero.
Yet fossil-drenched and fossil-entrenched government and corporate interests keep delivering more of the same: they continue to subsidize, and to explore for, drill for, and burn fossil fuels. They continue to expand damaging industrial agriculture at home and overseas. They do this while promoting a fantasy that ‘nature-based solutions’ and future ‘carbon dioxide removal’ (CDR) technologies will be able to suck those continuing emissions back out of the atmosphere some day. CDR is essential to their claims of ‘net zero’, as removal of carbon dioxide is how the ‘net’ is supposed to happen, always sometime in the future.
This analysis, released alongside our campaign statement, focuses on the European Commission’s proposal for a Carbon Removal Certification Framework.