What net zero means for ecosystems

Last week the UK Government made the welcome announcement that it has set a target of net zero emissions, to be enshrined in law. This is a big step forward in the ambition needed to tackle the climate crisis and the focus is now shifting to how that ambition can be secured. How can we ensure nature plays a critical role in climate change mitigation in a way that secures benefits for the climate and for biodiversity? How can we ensure loopholes in the Government’s proposals to include international offsetting are minimised? As the dust settles in the UK, my colleague Melanie Coath reflects from the UN climate negotiations this week in Bonn on what net zero really means for countries and what role ecosystems must play.

I have been out here in Bonn for nearly a week now and net zero is a live topic! The UK is the first G7 country to adopt this target and it has certainly created a welcome stir. Two questions are on people’s lips relating to net zero targets… How big is the “net”? And does zero really mean zero?

The first of these refers to the extent to which countries can offset any remaining emissions from fossil fuels that they find it impossible to fully eliminate. They can do this either by intending to rely on their forests and other ecosystems to mop up future greenhouse gas emissions or indeed to rely on someone else’s forests to do the job. The UK Government includes the option to meet our domestic net zero target using international credits, i.e. other countries’ emissions reductions. This doesn’t sound as if it is necessarily problematic – if other countries have huge forests for instance, could they not also help us meet our tough targets? That depends on if the system works and there is no cheating going on and that depends on how discussions here around Article 6 of the Paris Agreement play out. Negotiations on this strand of the talks broke down in the climate negotiations in Katowice last year because some countries, notably Brazil, were calling for an approach that is essentially double-counting. They want to count the emissions reductions in their own country’s target but at the same time sell them as credits to other countries. Which brings us to answer the second question – in this instance zero does not mean zero. The EU negotiating bloc and a number of others, are pushing back very hard on this but talks have reached a stalemate. I haven’t been following this line of the negotiations in detail but colleagues reported that country representatives were actually shouting at each other in Tuesday’s session – which is quite unusual in a room of trained negotiators. I hope they find a way of unblocking the current impasse, so that when countries adopt a net zero target, as they must, emissions reductions really are what they seem.

My focus here has really been on the critical role that nature can play in helping us reach a net zero target. NGOs collaborate closely at these negotiations and I co-chair the NGOs’ Ecosystems Working Group. One of our key tasks is pressing for nature-based solutions to climate change to be embedded in countries’ targets and plans to meet the Paris Agreement.  Research suggests that around a third of emissions reductions can be delivered by ecosystems, yet measures to protect and restore nature receive woefully little political attention or investment in most countries. That said, since the IPBES report a couple of months ago set out the extent of the biodiversity crisis, willingness from Parties to consider the biodiversity crisis alongside the climate crisis has shifted significantly – I’m really noticing that change at these negotiations. In meeting the Costa Rica negotiator, I was delighted to hear that Costa Rica intends nature-based solutions will be one of key three strands at the pre-COP – the short autumn conference ahead of the big COP (Conference of the Parties, a Ministerial meeting) in December. Furthermore, when I invited a delegate from Chile to our NGO Ecosystems Working Group meeting, she set out Chile’s intention for the COP in Santiago this year to be a “blue COP” recognising the critical impact climate change is having on oceans and their ecosystems.

Oceans are huge carbon sinks and play a major role in slowing global warming yet as temperatures warm, they are acifidying with profound impacts on plankton and shellfish skeletons and therefore survival. These creatures are at the bottom of the ocean food chain and the impacts of this acidification could be devastating. It’s important therefore that oceans are finally starting to get the attention they deserve. Meanwhile on land our forests, peatlands, grasslands, saltmarshes and mangrove forests all have a critical role to play and their protection and restoration will also be essential. As Martin has mentioned in a previous blog, RSPB has mapped the UK’s high carbon, high wildlife places and looked at the extent to which they are protected or otherwise. This kind of spatial approach is very important and I will be showcasing our work to EU land-use negotiators in a meeting tomorrow and urging them to consider this in their own countries.

You may have seen the headline that the Arctic permafrosts are melting today at a rate that was not expected for another 70 years. The latest science on climate impacts is truly sobering and the pace of negotiations here can seem painfully slow. Yet I never fail to be impressed that we have 195 countries committed to discussing how to tackle the many facets of climate change impacts, mitigation and adaptation. It’s not easy and they are making progress. And while the cogs are turning here in the UN processes, we all can and must do whatever it takes in our own lives to address the climate emergency.

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