WHY
NOW?
The climate is reaching a tipping point. If left unchecked, the current pace of fossil fuel CO2 emissions will cause irreversible and disastrous impacts on the stability of our planet.
Our coastlines and cities are already under threat of rising seas and more intense storm events, and the natural systems we rely on for food and prosperity are declining. Although the scientific community has tracked the rise of CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere for decades and warned of its consequences, little progress has been made to mitigate the crisis.
World leaders united around a goal to mitigate climate change.
In 2015 a historic event took place as world leaders convened at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) and forged an agreement to limit the global average temperature increase above pre-industrial levels to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.”1
The Paris agreement sent a powerful message to businesses and governments worldwide:
Global fossil fuel CO2 emissions must peak by 2020 and reach zero emissions by about 2050.
Beyond establishing global temperature increase targets, the conveners of COP21 were instrumental in defining the path to a 2°C world. Scientists affiliated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prepared projections of global carbon emissions through different scenarios called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)1. Their studies revealed that to have near certainty – a greater than 85% change – of avoiding a temperature rise above 2°C, all fossil fuel based carbon emissions must peak by about 2020 and reach zero emissions by 2050.
Achieving Zero responds to this urgent timeframe by providing a unified framework for policies that drive climate action, one that helps governments and private industry adopt an accelerated pace of interventions.
[1] UNFCCC, 2015. Paris Agreement.
Government and industry leaders are committed.
Achieving Zero
Reaching a 50-65% carbon emissions reduction in the built environment by 2030, and zero emissions by 2040, is critical if we are to successfully manage climate change. Achieving Zero is a framework and set of tools to help city and sub-national governments (state, provincial, and regional) meet this target.