Net zero targets are increasingly being met through offsets and land-sector accounting rather than real cuts to fossil fuel emissions. The result is climate progress on paper, while pollution continues in practice.

Net zero emissions by 2050 has become a major failure because it is enabling climate targets to be met without a significant reduction in the use of fossil fuels.

Net zero was intended to provide a pathway to decarbonising the global economy. It is now doing the opposite. The fossil fuel industry and complicit governments have combined the misuse of net zero/carbon offsetting with the fig leaf of carbon capture and storage to carry out a brilliant greenwashing operation.

It is essential there is accurate reporting of progress towards the global phase out of fossil fuels, but net zero reporting is failing to do this and should be replaced with actual emissions reporting.

The Paris Agreement calls for a balance between sinks and sources of emissions in order to achieve what has become known as global net zero. Net zero refers to a state whereby greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere are reduced as close to zero as possible and the remaining emissions are balanced by permanent (in theory) removals from the atmosphere. Net zero was prescribed as a goal because it is impossible to eliminate all emissions in the foreseeable future. This doesn’t invalidate making a 100 per cent decarbonisation of the global economy a goal to aspire to.

Carbon offsetting is the method being used to balance emissions that currently can’t be stopped. If carbon offsetting was being used as intended it would mainly be used by industries where technologies have not yet been developed to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, such as aviation, shipping, steel, cement and fertilisers. Other companies and public entities could also legitimately use offsetting for residual emissions after they had eliminated emissions to the greatest extent possible.

Most offsetting is enabled by companies procuring carbon credits that have been generated from initiatives that increase the drawdown of atmospheric carbon by land-based carbon sequestration. However, emitted CO2 and CO2 drawn down from the atmosphere are not equivalent, and consequently there is no balance. Trees and other vegetation are part of the active carbon cycle, and take decades to absorb carbon.

Fossil fuels release CO2 instantly, and it stays in the atmosphere for centuries. And with increasingly destructive weather events, caused by climate change, carbon sequestration is becoming much less permanent. For example, wildfires are increasingly releasing massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Consequently, carbon offsetting does not compensate for continuing to burn fossil fuels. And the scientific advice is clear that for the climate threat to be minimised there has to be both a rapid phase out of fossil fuels and as much carbon sequestration as it is responsibly possible to achieve.

National and sub-national governments and private corporations are ignoring the requirement to only use offsetting as a last option for emissions that are impossible to eliminate. Companies are being allowed to decide whether to eliminate emissions or offset them. And there is no control mechanism in place to enable assessments to be carried out as to whether offsetting can be justified.

Companies should be incentivised to eliminate emissions, not offset them, but the opposite is happening. If companies choose to use offsetting, offsets are reported as if they were actual emissions reductions. This enables climate targets to be met without fossil fuel usage being reduced. The large fossil fuel corporations have become major buyers of carbon credits. This enables them to meet climate targets whilst continuing to extract coal, oil or gas – a climate disaster.

It is outrageous that fossil fuel companies are being allowed to offset emissions. Offsetting is meant to accelerate global decarbonisation. The core business of the fossil fuel industry does the opposite. This is a deliberate misuse of carbon offsetting that is happening globally on a massive scale and has completely destroyed the viability of net zero reporting.

Supporters of carbon trading claim it is a good thing because carbon credits provide funding to increase land-based carbon sequestration. This claim collapses when the money to fund carbon credits comes from big polluting companies to enable them to continue polluting.

The money to finance carbon sequestration doesn’t have to come from companies wanting to offset their emissions. Globally, trillions of dollars are providing subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. This money would be better spent financing carbon sequestration.

A significant problem with net zero emissions reporting relates to LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry). Land use changes have little to do with government policy and are not related to the priority requirement to rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels, but they are classed as emissions reductions, and they do have a major impact on net zero reporting. Australia’s reported emissions since 2005 show a 27 per cent reduction, but when land sector “emissions” reductions are excluded, emissions across the rest of the economy have only dropped by about 3 per cent since 2005. As offsets also are included as emissions reductions, it is possible that Australia hasn’t reduced fossil fuel related emissions at all since 2005. When considered globally, there may well be significant under reporting of actual emissions.

Another problem with LULUCF is that land use “emissions” are hard to accurately calculate. They are arrived at by modelling and are subject to fudging.

It is important to know that fossil fuel exporting companies and countries only have to account for domestic emissions of about 10 per cent, and these can be offset. The major emissions when the fuel is burned are the responsibility of the user country. Consequently, massively polluting developments can be approved with minimal impact on climate targets.

A goal of actual zero emissions would require companies and countries to regularly report their actual emissions. Offsets would be included as emissions as the emissions are continuing. Emissions that have been offset would also be reported separately as this would provide useful information regarding work still required to eliminate these emissions. Changes to LULUCF “emissions” would be recorded and reported separately.

Offsetting would be restricted to its original intention; used by industries where technology to decarbonise processes has not yet been developed, and elsewhere as a last resort option for residual emissions.

Fossil fuel companies would not be allowed to offset emissions as their core business creates emissions and is incompatible with decarbonising the global economy.

There is an overwhelming case for net zero reporting to be replaced by actual emissions reporting. However, I don’t think this will happen. The powerful fossil fuel industry, companies profiting from carbon trading, and many governments, including the Australian government, will resist change. From a government perspective, allowing fossil fuel producers to offset emissions is the only way for governments that intend to continue approving new coal, oil or gas projects to meet internationally acceptable climate targets.

The best hope for change, as I've previously written, is to stop trying to persuade governments with more evidence and instead change the politics – by creating a powerful, non-political, science-based expert group (led by a high-profile Australian) to run a major public communications campaign that builds community pressure for Australia to push globally for an equitable phase-out of fossil fuels, including backing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.