Real zero vs net zero

The original idea of net zero was that we would cut emissions as close to zero by 2050 as we could, and what was left over we would try to offset.

This was greeted with cries of glee by big oil, airlines and others.   They decided not to wait until 2050, but to start immediately "reducing" their emissions by buying carbon offsets.   So, for example, an Ozzie petrol (gasoline) company started selling its "zero carbon" petrol.  How did it achieve this miracle?  But buying carbon offsets.  Qantas "offset" the emissions from its flights.   An electric utility announced its "green" credentials.  Zero emissions, it trumpeted, thanks to offsets.

But these offsets were dodgy.  For example, a farmer who had been paid not to clear scrub off some of his land admitted that he was never going to clear the land anyway.  The payments for the "offsets" were a handy increase to his income.  Peasants who promised not to clear some jungle near them were paid for these "offsets" and then, when this was checked up on 10 years later, were found to have cleared the jungle anyway.  Did they give that money back?  What do you think?  CCS (Carbon capture and storage) projects used the carbon dioxide sucked from the atmosphere to increase the oil that could be pumped from underground.  And the CO2 likely escaped back into the atmosphere anyway.  Forests planted to "remove CO2 from the atmosphere" burned down in one of Oz's periodic and ever more frequent bushfires thus putting all that carbon back in the atmosphere.  Meanwhile, of course, emissions kept on rising.

Net zero is irredeemably sullied.  It's a nonsense.  A lie.  A way to let hoi polloi believe that something is being done, when nothing is.  A way for carbon polluters to pretend they care.

So we need real zero.  We need to cut emissions by some minimum percentage each year, year after year, no phiffing and phaffing around with accounting book entries.  Real cuts to emissions.  Real reductions.  Real progress.

Also:  none of those blithely promising net zero by 2050 will be around in 2050 to explain why we haven't achieved it.  So we need annual targets, not so far-away airy-fairy promise.

If we all cut our emissions by just 3% a year, we would cut them by a cumulative 53% by 2050.  If we could increase that by 1%, to 4% a year, annual emissions would fall by 64% by 2050.

Both of these targets are feasible.   Together, electricity generation and land transport are responsible for ~50% of total CO2 emissions.  Given the fall in solar, battery and EV costs, which have made these cheaper than their fossil fuel alternatives, we will be able to cut emissions by 50% over the next 25 years as we replace coal power stations with zero-carbon alternatives and petrol cars and lorries with EVs.  We can replace gas heating by heat pumps, which will cut emissions by another ~8%.  

That still leaves air travel, steel and cement.  Yet here, too, we are making slow progress.  Then there's agriculture.  We might be saved despite ourselves by the growth of vat meat and milk, which will slash emissions and allow cleared land to be reforested.  

We can do it, but we must be alert to the scams fossil fuelists will try to fob us off with.  Let's start by banning the term net zero.