Greta Stacy is a high school science teacher in Doha, Qatar. She has previously taught in Ecuador and the United States.
Teaching about how we can achieve net zero emissions is important because it focuses on solutions to climate change. This is a great example of a complex real-world problem for students to grapple with, and they can explore the pros and cons of different approaches to achieve net zero. For example, students could consider if mass carbon capture can really work. Students could also evaluate the policy approaches taken to try and achieve net zero and if these emissions targets are really a scam.
Written By: MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative
The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program, a part of MIT Climate HQ, provides the public with nonpartisan, easy-to-understand, and scientifically-grounded information on climate change and its solutions.
Some actions, like using electricity from a fossil fuel-fired power plant, lead to greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. These greenhouse gas “emissions” are the root cause of climate change. Other actions help reduce emissions, like building a solar farm that lets us run that fossil fuel-fired power plant less—or even, like planting trees, take some greenhouse gases back out of the atmosphere.
A person or organization with net zero emissions is one that takes both kinds of actions, such that their positive and negative impacts on the climate are considered to effectively balance out. This is an important strategy, because it can be very hard, expensive, or even impossible to emit no greenhouse gases at all. By lowering one’s own emissions as much as possible, and then “canceling out” any remaining (or “residual”) emissions, an organization can reach net zero emissions and stop contributing to the buildup of greenhouse gases and their effect on the climate.
Net zero organizations
A growing number of organizations, from companies and universities to cities and countries, are pledging to reach net zero emissions.
Ideally, they would do this by eliminating all their emissions. Most organizations, however, will find they can only reduce their own emissions so far. (For instance, they may need to buy electricity from a local electric grid that still runs partly on fossil fuels.) To reach net zero, these organizations will need to either take actions that remove some greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, or help someone else reduce their emissions—like by buying equipment to capture methane at their local landfill. These actions could be considered to have “negative emissions.”
