Statements from signatories

What people are saying.

“COP26 is shaping up to be a “Conference of the Privileged,” given vaccine nationalism and gaping resource inequalities preventing many of those from the countries most threatened by climate change from attending. In this context, rich nations have a heightened duty to deliver Real Zero, through real solutions and real financing — not hollow promises of achieving a distant “Net Zero” target through accounting tricks and illusory and dangerous technologies, like carbon capture and blue hydrogen, that entrench fossil fuel dependence. Real ambition requires a just transition, beginning with immediate measures to end fossil fuel subsidies and phase out fossil fuel production, first and fastest in those countries that bear the greatest responsibility for global warming. We don’t want to hear what countries will do by 2050; we want to see what they are doing today to eliminate emissions at the source and to invest in transformation.”

— Nikki Reisch, Center for International Environmental Law

After weakening the Paris Agreement, polluting governments and corporations are burying real solutions that stop emissions at source in favor of empty promises disguised by the catchy ‘net zero’ slogan. Fortunately, this big con has been exposed for the scam that it is. Governments at COP26- especially Global North governments- need to stop condemning the world, and heed the demands of the people by committing to real solutions and Real Zero right now.

— Hellen Neima, Corporate Accountability, Director of Climate Campaign for Africa

La” Emisiones Netas Cero” son un engaño para seguir con la extracción y quema de combustibles fósiles, lo que va a empeorar el cambio climático. Es una propuesta neoliberal y neocolonial ya que necesita de acaparar tierras principalmente en el Sur global. Deja además en la impunidad a los contaminadores y responsables de las crisis climáticas. En lugar de las Emisiones Netas Cero debemos empezar a dejar los hidrocarburos fósiles en el subsuelo y revivir propuestas como las de Yasuní en Ecuador. 

“Zero Net Emissions" is a cheat in order to continue the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, which will worsen climate change. It is a neoliberal and neo-colonial proposal as it requires land grabbing mainly in the global South, and it also leaves polluters and those responsible for the climate crises unpunished. Instead of Zero Net Emissions, we should start leaving fossil fuels in the ground and revive proposals like the Yasuní in Ecuador.

— Ivonne Yánez, Acción Ecológica, Ecuador

Net Zero targets are being used as a smokescreen to allow pollution to continue, instead of delivering the emission cuts needed to avert catastrophic climate change. With so many plans relying heavily on carbon offsetting, Net Zero targets are likely to drive devastating land grabs in the Global South, threatening the rights and food security of women, smallholder farmers and indigenous communities.  

There isn’t enough available land on earth to meet the demand for planting the vast new forests, bioenergy crops and unproven technology that so many Net Zero plans rely on.

— Teresa Anderson, Climate Policy Coordinator for ActionAid International

Net Zero is a blivit concept — ten gallons of garbage trying to fit in a two-gallon bag. It leads to inanities like building wind farms to power open-pit coal mines or replacing natural forests with flammable eucalyptus plantations. Nature isn’t fooled by these dumb ‘net zero’ pledges, and we shouldn’t be either.

— Peter Riggs, Convenor of CLARA, Director, Pivot Point

In the Global south like Indonesia, there is no fundamental question about what and for whom this much energy continues to be generated. Coal, nickel and geothermal which are labeled as new and renewable energy continue to be carried out at the expense of the living space of residents in the rainforests of Kalimantan and Sumatra as well as on small islands, Sulawesi, Maluku and Nusa Tenggara. Accounting for Target Net Zero actually preserves the exploitation of mining materials and hazardous energy. 

Indonesia is a country whose system is ruled by an extractives oligarchy, they use a net-zero target to wash his hands of his responsibility for his concessions who are connected to so that they can continue to operate as usual and earn benefit from it.

— Merah Johansyah, JATAM Indonesia

African leaders must not be fooled by techno-speak and false promises from the major polluting countries and corporates about NET ZERO. We need REAL ZERO. African cannot afford the world fooling around with delayed action to stop climate injustices. Every year governments delay action, more Africans are going to die as a result of poverty, droughts, floods, diseases brought on by climate change. We need real action on mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage and just transition.  

Africans at the CoP - in the streets, in negotiating rooms, in high-level one-on-one envoy meetings - demand nothing less than REAL ZERO. Or else they fail the people of Africa and commit Africans to increased levels of poverty and death. Our African leaders must hold the big polluters to account, and as Africans, we need to hold our leaders to account to ensure that they do not buckle under global pressure and the promise and hope of aid.

We need climate debt and reparations.

— Lorraine Chiponda, coordinator of the Africa Coal Network based in groundWork (Friends of the Earth, South Africa)

We are concerned that rich countries and polluting corporations will push ahead with ‘false solutions’ at COP26. ‘Net zero’ pledges, carbon markets and offsetting, geoengineering, and the nascent ‘Nature Based Solutions’ will allow continued polluting on the premise of reducing emissions elsewhere - based on tree planting, buying carbon credits or relying on unproven technologies that suck carbon out of the air. These do not reduce fossil fuel emissions at source, and can cause grave harm to communities in the global South.

We cannot rely on costly, risky and unproven technologies which have potentially devastating impacts and lead to land-grabbing, peoples’ rights violations and destruction of forests and biodiversity in the global south. The names and terms keep evolving, but the basic, damaging principles remain the same. They strengthen corporate power, deflect responsibility from rich historical polluters and prevent urgent and equitable action on climate change.

— Dipti Bhatnagar, Climate Justice and Energy Coordinator, Friends of the Earth International, in Mozambique

With their net-zero targets for 2050, rather than targets for real zero much earlier than that, wealthy countries and other high emitting countries are violating the human rights of millions of people, condemning them to premature death, hunger, disease and displacement. Wealthy countries can and must urgently bring emissions to zero; rather than putting an unrealistic and excessive burden on developing nations. All governments must take every possible step to quickly phase out emissions rather than relying on offsetting and carbon removal mechanisms, many of which will take up land needed for producing food and displace Indigenous peoples and local communities from their lands.

— Chiara Liguori, Policy adviser on environment and human rights, Amnesty International

Long before COP21 in Paris, multinational agribusiness and fossil fuel corporations were already using their power and influence to promote policies at national, sub-national and global levels. The 2015 Paris Agreement created a “consensus” of sorts around several very problematic false solutions. Carbon trading and offsets mechanisms contained in Article 6, for example, will put significant power in the hands of wealthy governments, corporations, bankers and traders whose primary objective is to maximize profits not to take care of Mother Earth. Instead of taking decisive actions to adapt to climate change and commit to an honest transition towards democratic and human rights-based food systems, powerful actors are using “net zero” pledges to hide their climate inaction.

— La Via Campesina

Global leaders must stop ignoring millions of voices from around the world, and pursue a path that rapidly phases out fossil fuels and ends industrial agriculture, the real cause of the climate crisis. Net Zero is a dangerous concept that allows corporations to continue polluting, perpetuating a lie that we can simply offset an endless stream of emissions. We cannot solve the climate crisis by planting trees or relying on expensive and mythological technologies, pretending we can simply suck harmful emissions out of the air. More inaction on climate change will perpetuate more natural disasters, increasing the intensity of droughts, flooding, heatwave, and wildfires.

— Jim Walsh, Senior Energy Policy Analyst, Food & Water Watch

The recent IPCC AR6 Working Group 1 report indicates that the world will breach the Paris Agreement benchmark of 1.5 anyway. In 2050, even if the carbon emissions (in the case of least emission scenario) is close to zero, emissions from Methane, Sulphur dioxide and Nitrous oxide will be very high. That renders the very policy and objective of Net Zero meaningless and redundant. If the impact of offsets, the high requirement of land and the negative emissions technology is considered it will be disastrous for the indigenous peoples and local communities, women, peasants and youth. Net Zero is a political target for doing nothing, continuing business as usual, and delaying emission reduction - a false solution where billions of dollars is invested. We need the governments and the corporates to act now, not in 2030 or 2040 or 2050!

— Souparna Lahiri, Climate Policy Advisor, Global Forest Coalition

The Net Zero framework, which was intended to provide countries with a tiny bit of wiggle room around hard-to-decarbonize industries, has become a loophole large enough to admit the entire fossil fuel industry. If COP 26 approves new carbon markets to facilitate countries meeting their Net Zero targets, they will do so without any real emissions reductions -- and we will lose any chance of keeping global warming within the 1.5C limit. We need to phase out the fossil fuel industry, including its rapidly growing plastic/petrochemical arm. Instead, we run the risk of increased greenwashing scams like “waste-to-energy,” plastic-derived fuels and the like, which do nothing to reduce emissions or protect community health.

— Neil Tangri, Science and Policy Director, GAIA (Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance)

A “Net Zero” target is just a form of delay, deflection, denial, and distraction. When a corporation or government says they’ll get to “net zero” by 2050, that reduces the pressure on them to cut emissions today.  It deflects responsibility to other people in other places - the sites of carbon offsets, and researchers developing “negative emissions” technologies. It denies the reality that these negative emissions technologies are mostly a pipedream that may never materialize. And most of all, it creates a distraction that allows corporations and governments to keep profiting from pollution. We demand real solutions, which have to start by leaving fossil fuels in the ground.

— Basav Sen, Climate Policy Director, Institute for Policy Studies