What are the positions on achieving net-zero carbon?

The different approaches being employed are counter-productive

Question: What are the positions on achieving net-zero carbon?
Position‹2 of 3›: Net-zero is unachievable through current targets
Argument1 of 2›: The different approaches being employed are counter-productive

Net-zero will supposedly be achieved by cutting emissions of greenhouse gases while using ‘negative emissions technologies’ to take away residual emissions, but these two approaches risk not working in tandem- and NET’s have problems of their own.

The argument

Net-zero carbon is an admirable goal, and there's cause to be hopeful at the concerted effort across nations to meet it as climate legislation becomes law at an increasingly urgent rate. Yet care should be given to how the net-zero aim is achieved, considering its components. First, there is cutting emissions, the more widely recognised goal in regard to climate change publicity. Attention has been given to reducing our individual carbon-footprint by traveling less, saving electricity, and being conscious of where we get our food. This is beneficial as long as it can occur on an industrial scale too. Then there’s Negative Emission Technologies, which are a more complicated element to the emissions discussion. The reason that these are essential to net-zero is that cutting emissions alone will not prevent global warming. Even if emissions were reduced to zero, there would still be residual greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and NETS would need to take out 10 billion metric tonnes a year in order to meet current targets. Yet NETs also pose unique issues. They might help store excess carbon dioxide in forests, soils, or geological reserves, but these risk leaking back into the atmosphere and may have other ill effects on the environment. Then there’s the risk of the technologies being used as an excuse to delay emission cuts- there’s a possible economic incentive to deal with residual emissions later when NETs will be more developed and cheaper. But we cannot afford to be complacent about the current situation- and the extent of the technologies’ applicability is very much speculative, rather than palpable. Rather than counting on them, we should try to meet separate targets for reducing emissions and for taking them out of the atmosphere. Besides, the former poses its own challenges.

Premises

[P1]Net-zero requires both cutting emissions and Negative Emission Technologies, since even zero emissions leaves residual greenhouse gases that NETs must remove at 10 billion tonnes a year. [P2] But NETs risk leaking stored carbon back into the atmosphere and create an economic incentive to delay emission cuts until the technology is cheaper. [P3] Their applicability is still speculative, so relying on them rather than meeting separate cutting and removal targets is counter-productive. [C] Therefore, because the different approaches being employed are counter-productive, net-zero is unachievable through current targets.

Counter-arguments

Advocates of a measured, long-term approach reply that leakage and moral hazard are contingent design flaws, not proof that removal must fail. Permanence standards, monitoring, and — as the argument itself recommends — separate verifiable targets for cutting and for removing emissions directly address the very risks raised, so the counter-productiveness is a reason to design NET policy well, not evidence net-zero is unachievable. They add that the speculativeness of some technologies does not doom the goal, since proven removals such as afforestation and soil carbon already exist and emission cuts can be accelerated. The conclusion — that net-zero is unachievable through current targets — does not follow from premises that at most show the pathway is uncertain and demands careful policy.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Leakage and moral hazard are contingent design flaws that policy (permanence rules, separate targets) can mitigate, not intrinsic reasons removal must fail. [Rejecting P3] That some NETs are speculative shows the pathway is uncertain, not unachievable; proven removals and faster emission cuts remain available.