The obsolete Net Zero bubble and what happens now

Imagine that I weigh 150 kg (over 23,5 stones).

If I weigh 150 kg and my heart, kidneys and other vital organs are on the verge of collapsing, a ‘net-zero’ calorie policy just ensures I stay at 150 kg. It stops me from getting heavier, but it leaves me in the intensive care unit. To survive, I don’t need to stabilise my weight; I need to actively shed the fat immediately.

Stabilising at the point of near-death is suicide.

A net zero diet calorie policy for someone weighing 70-80 kg is a great policy, because they are already in a good place. But for an overweight person, such a policy is disastrous.

This is exactly the case with the Net Zero Carbon dioxide policy, widely suggested today as the solution to our climate woes.

Net zero carbon emission means releasing no more carbon dioxide into the air than you take out.

But atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations have already reached very high levels, currently at an average of approximately 429 to 432 parts per million (ppm), driven mainly by the unabated extensive use of fossil fuels[i].

If the Net Zero CO₂ policy had been achieved 20-30 years ago when the concentration of CO₂ was at approx. 363 ppm in 1996 and 382 ppm in 2006 (just slightly above the 350 ppm upper safety limit), it would have been a good policy then, but now in 2026, it’s simply inadequate.

Net zero today (2026) will be disastrous

Net zero at 2050 or beyond will be suicidal.

Let’s have a closer look[ii] at the levels of CO₂ atmospheric concentration expected in the future from the current 430+ ppm value:

If we continue at the same rates of fossil fuel use, the expected CO₂ concentration values will be:

2030: ~440 ppm (Crossing the 1.5°C global warming boundary)
2040: ~466 ppm
2050: ~492 ppm (Approaching double the pre-industrial stable baseline)
2060: ~518 ppm
2100: ~620 to 660 ppm

And you really don’t want to know the global temperature rises associated with these CO₂ concentrations: they make the summer of 2026 seem like a cool spring.

And in case you are wondering why I even bother to extrapolate to the above dates, have a look at the NET ZERO targets, as conceived by some major CO₂ emitters[iii]:

EU by 2050 – in 25 years
USA by 2050 – in 25 years
China by 2060 – in 35 years
Russia by 2060 – in 35 years
India by 2070 – in 45 years

By the time these people are done with Net Zero, we will all be done too.

The preceding analysis proves that Net Zero cannot solve our climate problems because it’s already outdated.

Let’s examine some extra parameters that underscore the above.

1. The Carbon Budget

There is something known as the Carbon Budget[iv], which you might have heard of. This, to me, makes more sense than most arguments, because it appeals to everyday logic, even for non-scientists.

The carbon budget, like any budget, relates a given quantity with inflows and outflows over time. Simply put, given present correlation of the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere and the temperature rise, we can do the following logical calculations:

The remaining carbon budget for a ~50% chance of staying under 1.5°C warming is only about 250 Gt CO₂ (as of early 2023).[v]
At current emissions levels (~42 Gt CO₂ per year), that budget would be used up in ~6 years[vi], i.e. before 2030.

This is why delaying emissions reductions, even by a few years, ensures temperature overshoot (and climate disasters galore).

2. CO₂ Never Dies

CO₂ lingers in the atmosphere from between 300-1,000 years, and once high concentrations are reached, the warming stays locked in for centuries[vii].

Just consider that all the CO₂ humanity has added to the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is still there, haunting us.

And the CO₂ we are adding now will be there to boil the great-grandchildren of your great-grandchildren… GET IT?

Hence, reducing or even stopping emissions altogether is not enough: we need to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.

3. The Holy Grail of 1.5^oC global mean temperature

The 1.5°C, has been already breached. It is dead and awaiting burial[viii], [ix].

Officially of course we will have to wait for 1.5°C limit to be breached for a number of years before it is pronounced dead by scientists. But in their heart of hearts they are already mourning [x].

The discussion now centres on the “overshoot”[xi], which is defined as the unknown period of time, when global average temperature will exceed the 1.5°C threshold, by an unknown quantity, before returning below it, by presently unknown means.

Feel free to search the internet, and if you come across a reliable figure for any of the above 3 unknowns, please let me know, because I failed in my search.

This is a good place to remember the survey[xii] conducted in May 2024, among climate scientists, who were asked to predict the actual temperature rise and which gave the following results:

3.0°C or higher: 42% of scientists project this catastrophic path.

2.5°C limit: 35% anticipate warming will stop around this mark.

2.0°C limit: 17% remain hopeful the world can keep it to two degrees.

1.5°C limit: Just 6% believe the original Paris Agreement target is achievable.

A number of scientists, however, are going even beyond that, trying to tell us that climate change is happening faster than predicted, but they don’t really have easy access to mainstream media, so they revert to social media.

One of them is Professor Bill McGuire, Emeritus Professor of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College London[xiii]. He was a contributing author to the IPCC’s Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters (SREX) and is an internationally recognised expert on climate change, geological hazards and extreme weather impacts. He has this to say:

“…. accordingly, we see a cataclysmic 3C rise by 2050…… the IPCC estimate of 2.6 to 2.7 C rise, by 2100 is complete “bollocks” ……[xiv]”

Professor McGuire’s underlying alarm reflects a growing, highly vocal faction of climate scientists who believe mainstream models are dangerously conservative[xv], [xvi].

We are therefore heading for or have even already locked a global temperature rise that will cause unprecedented disasters for humanity.

4. The culprit who refuses to disappear: Fossil Fuels

First of all, as you should know by now:

Over 75% of global CO₂ emissions are fossil fuel related[xvii].
CO₂ emissions continue to rise year in year out[xviii]
Increased CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere is responsible for global warming[xix].

These are scientific facts and not cheap political talk.

Relevant and extremely pertinent to this analysis is the fact that we live in a political reality which is guided by the “drill, baby, drill” philosophy, and this could not have happened at a worse climate moment[xx], [xxi], [xxii].

Therefore, further rise in CO₂ emissions is definitely expected.

5. So what happens now?

Net Zero today is absolutely useless because atmospheric concentrations are already too high.

With CO₂ levels floating between 429 and 432 ppm (well past the 350 ppm safety threshold), simply stopping additional emissions just locks in the current catastrophic baseline.

To actually restore the climate, the planet requires Net Negative emissions (removing more CO₂ than we emit) to draw down that atmospheric concentration.

Net Zero is an obsolete target because we have already overshot the safety limit; we now require Net Negative emissions to survive.

So where are we?

Well, we are exactly where we started: I am 150 kg and if I am to prevent a total systems failure:

I have to drastically reduce my calorie intake
I have to remove fat (calories) from my system
And I have to do it…. yesterday and not in 2050

In planetary terms:

We have to stop emitting CO₂,
We have to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere
We have to do it asap

What should we be doing to achieve these?

Phase out fossil fuels the fastest technically possible way and replace them with renewables and storage
Remove CO₂ from the atmosphere using Nature Based Solutions (plant trees and stop deforestation) and NOT Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which is another way to delay fossil fuel transition[xxiii].

Let me pause here to emphasise this point: Statistically, the vast majority of commercial CCS projects globally have been used for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)—literally using captured carbon to pump more oil out of mature wells[xxiv]. As climate advocates like Al Gore[xxv] have exposed, CCS has become a corporate greenwashing tool, permitting the fossil fuel industry to continue polluting under the guise of future technological fixes.

Do the above two immediately.

What are we doing instead?

We are using the obsolete Net Zero by 2050 target to greenwash the fact that we will continue following the same choices for more years, in spite of the climate disasters increasing in frequency and destruction effects.

The world is led by Market choices aimed at maximising profits for the fossil fuel lobby, at the expense of people and the planet.

We are following a recipe from the book of “Market Based Solutions”, instead of “Nature Based Solutions”, backed by science.

This is simply disastrous for current and future generations, but no one in the decision-making space seems to give a damn.

Do you?

Prof Dr Ioannis Tsipouridis

[i] https://www.climate.gov/media/12990

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_the_atmosphere_of_Earth

[iii][iii] https://decarbonization.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-emission-reduction-targets-by-country-in-2024/

[iv] https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/

[v] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01848-5?utm_source=chatgpt.com

[vi] https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/11/carbon-budget-run-out-six-years/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

[vii] https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/greenhouse-gases/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/?utm_source=chatgpt.com