Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-1 (section)

=== FAQ 1.3 | What is the difference between ‘net zero emissions’ and ‘carbon neutrality’? ===

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Annex I (Glossary) states that ‘carbon neutrality and net zero CO 2 emissions are overlapping concepts’ which ‘can be applied at the global or sub-global scales (e.g., regional, national and sub-national)’. At the global scale the terms are equivalent. At sub-global scales, net zero CO 2 typically applies to emissions under direct control or territorial responsibility of the entity reporting them (e.g., a country, district or sector); while carbon neutrality is also applied to firms, commodities and activities (e.g., a service or an event) and generally includes emissions and removals beyond the entity’s direct control or territorial responsibility, termed ‘Scope 3’ or ‘value chain emissions’ (Bhatia et al. 2011).

This means the emissions and removals that should be included are wider for ‘neutrality’ than for net zero goals, but also that offset mechanisms could be employed to help achieve neutrality through abatement beyond what is possible under the direct control of the entity. Rules and environmental integrity criteria are intended to ensure additionality and avoid double counting of offsets consistent with ‘neutrality’ claims (see ‘carbon neutrality’ and ‘offset’ in Glossary, for detail and a list of criteria).

While the term ‘carbon’ neutrality in this report is defined as referring specifically to CO 2 neutrality, use of this term in practice can be ambiguous, as some users apply it to neutrality of all GHG emissions. GHG neutrality means an entity’s gross emissions of all GHG must be balanced by the removal of an equivalent amount of CO 2 from the atmosphere. This requires the selection of a suitable metric that aggregates emissions from non-CO 2 gases, such as the commonly used GWP100 metric (for a discussion of GHG metrics, see AR6 WGI Box 1.3 and Cross-Chapter Box 2 in [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-2|Chapter 2]] of this report).

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