Net Zero Carbon will destroy the planet. Not because it is better than doing nothing, but because we think it is enough. By thinking that it is worth striving for we don’t question the fundamentals.
It is like driving down the motorway in a borrowed car that
has been rigged. We think that the accelerator and brake will allow us to
control things in an emergency, but… When we take our foot off the accelerator
the car carries on going at the same speed, and the brake does nothing. There
is trouble ahead on this road and we can do nothing to avoid it. We will crash
and die.
Net Zero Carbon is exactly the same. We are fooled into
thinking that this difficult global objective is worth striving for because it
is sufficient to save us. It won’t. Net Zero Carbon is the point where
greenhouse gas emissions are balanced by sequestration. Emissions minus
sequestration equals zero. Everything stops. But it stops at a new high level
of overheating. If we are lucky that will be only +2°C, (the better +1.5°C
is already lost). But that new elevated overheating stays. It is locked in.
That is the accelerator pedal which keeps the car travelling just as fast.
There are no brakes, so overheating still carries on trashing the planet. Ice
melts, seas rise, storms, droughts and wildfires rage. And there is no way to
put the demons back in the box.
Only Net Negative Carbon applies the brake. If more carbon
is sequestered than emitted then greenhouse gas levels falls, as does
overheating.
But everything I hear on the media only talks about Net Zero
Carbon. That’s because Big Oil lobbyists have polluted the Paris Agreement and
COPs as well as our atmosphere. The real science has been muzzled. And that
will drive the planet we’ve borrowed to destruction.
