The ‘net-zero’ greenwash ASHISH KOTHARI 13 JULY 2021 https://wsimag.com/economy-and-politics/66356-the-net-zero-greenwash Climate crisis and biodiversity loss are becoming impossible to ignore
Net-zero is part of the discussions around the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework that is being negotiated under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)...For biodiversity, the equivalent is ‘no-net-loss’, which means that the loss of an ecosystem or species somewhere is compensated by regenerating or protecting anew a similar ecosystem or that species somewhere else.
Firstly, a mindset that equates pollution emitted or forest cut in one place to pollution absorbed or afforestation done elsewhere, is ecologically and socially ignorant (or willfully negligent)
Second, as a recent civil society report exposing the net-zero scam points out, many of the proposals for achieving this target are based on unrealistic projections of land available, or technologies that are not yet viable.
Third, the common experience with all such approaches is that the targets are hardly ever met. Inefficiency, corruption, and other all-too-frequent bugbears of the governmental or corporate system play their own part in this failure of implementation.
Fourth, net-zero approaches do not take into consideration social, economic, and cultural impacts, both of the activities that are causing emissions or biodiversity loss as also of the compensatory activities. If a forest or wetland on which a local community is dependent is cleared for a mining project, how can afforestation or regeneration of a wetlands elsewhere possibly compensate its loss of livelihoods and cultural-spiritual connections?
Fifth, as the above mentioned civil society report points out, “the vast majority of these (climate-related) plans are centred on a “net zero” by 2050 timeline with little action taken to reduce emissions at source for decades—far too long a timeline for a credible emissions reduction plan that ensures we keep global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
It is not as if alternatives do not exist. They do, and are proven as viable in initiatives around the world. Decentralised renewable energy such as solar is now financially affordable (in many situations cheaper than fossil fuels). It needs to be accompanied with limits on luxury demand and the redistribution of existing energy to those who still don’t have enough. These are political issues, and require cultural change as well to give a sense of the injustice and unsustainability of demanding more and more energy (even if its ‘renewable’).
What is Net Zero and why is it difficult for India to achieve it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaWR4e8ne3Y Sep 22,2021