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Steps towards carbon neutrality : an overview of strategies and the role of offsetting

  • In the Paris Agreement, the governments of the world have pledged to attain climate neutrality in the second half of this century. More precisely, in Art. 4.1 parties agreed to "achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases". However, the collective as well as the majority of measures by individual countries fall short of embarking on a pathway towards that objective. But nevertheless, an increasing number of actors - countries, sub-national entities, as well as corporations - have stepped up their efforts and set themselves carbon neutrality goals. In this Policy Brief Lukas Hermwille and Markus Gornik portray the commitments of Costa Rica, Norway, Sweden, the City of Melbourne,In the Paris Agreement, the governments of the world have pledged to attain climate neutrality in the second half of this century. More precisely, in Art. 4.1 parties agreed to "achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases". However, the collective as well as the majority of measures by individual countries fall short of embarking on a pathway towards that objective. But nevertheless, an increasing number of actors - countries, sub-national entities, as well as corporations - have stepped up their efforts and set themselves carbon neutrality goals. In this Policy Brief Lukas Hermwille and Markus Gornik portray the commitments of Costa Rica, Norway, Sweden, the City of Melbourne, Australia and the corporation Microsoft. All cases have set themselves ambitious neutrality goals and have implemented measures to achieve them. However, none of the cases will be able to achieve accomplish neutrality on their own, at least not on short-term. The remaining emissions will be compensated using carbon credits either from domestic offset schemes (Costa Rica) or from international schemes. For the time being, voluntary carbon neutrality goals, as presented in this Policy Brief, are an effective way to demonstrate leadership in climate protection. For the near future, pioneering actors that set voluntary carbon or climate neutrality goals could provide a significant source of demand for international carbon credits.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Document Type:Working Paper
Author:Lukas HermwilleORCiDGND, Markus Gornik
URN (citable link):https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:wup4-opus-68645
Publisher:Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie
Place of publication:Wuppertal
Year of Publication:2017
Number of page:18
Series Title (English):JIKO policy brief
Volume:2017,2
Language:English
Divisions:Energie-, Verkehrs- und Klimapolitik
Dewey Decimal Classification:320 Politik
Licence:License LogoIn Copyright - Urheberrechtlich geschützt