Net Zero is not literally “zero”

“Will zero emissions by 2050 really be possible with things like shipping, space travel and other industries still around then?”

This came up in a Slack channel this week, below is the answer I shared:

Net Zero doesn’t mean zero emissions.

Emissions will still occur in a net zero scenario, but they’ll be within the limits of what the planet can naturally absorb through forests, the sea, etc, as well as via any tech that’s developed to capture and/or sequester carbon.

Much like carbon offsets create a way to kind of cheat your way to zero emissions, this carbon capture tech will provide “cheats” to the opportunists of the next couple of decades.

Lots of tech is required to get us to net zero, but once we’re there and tech continues to be developed, we’ll create a buffer where we can actually capture more emissions than we create – that’s where the cheaters will play… and that’s ok. We’ll build the tech anyway.

Some people will still want to fuel their classic cars for a Sunday spin – that might still happen! But once we clear the air of the last hundred-odd years of fossil fuel bingeing, the planet will gobble it up without a sweat.