LEGALLY BINDING NET-ZERO TARGETS

Lawmakers make government legally responsible for reaching net zero by a specified year. This means bringing the greenhouse-gas emissions covered by the law into balance with removals, rather than leaving the deadline as a political promise. The law must identify the responsible public authorities and the accounts used to judge the result. Governments then need to plan for both deep emissions cuts and the removals required to balance what remains. Lawmakers may reinforce the deadline with interim limits, delivery-plan duties or independent review, but these are additional design choices, not automatic features of a binding target.

The law should identify the target year, gases, territory and sectors covered, and explain how domestic removals and international credits enter the balance. The central legal choice is the duty placed on government and what follows if it fails. Lawmakers can strengthen accountability by requiring progress reports, corrective plans or independent scrutiny. They can also add interim carbon budgets, which cap total emissions over several years, to prevent action being deferred until the final deadline. Separate limits on reliance on removals protect the required emissions cuts. Rules for amendment and legal challenge determine how the target survives changes of government.

Putting the deadline in law gives ministries a continuing basis for aligning decisions about energy, transport, industry, land use and public spending. Infrastructure expected to operate beyond the target year must be considered against that future balance. Where the law also requires plans or independent scrutiny, gaps in the assumed emissions cuts and removal supply become visible before the deadline. For CDR, the useful effect is an explicit place in long-term public policy, with further decisions needed to establish programmes, budgets and customers.

Government may retain the legal deadline while postponing the decisions needed to meet it. Optimistic assumptions about future removals can conceal a shortage of achievable emissions cuts, and weak accounting can treat unstable land sinks as a dependable long-term balance. Oversight may expose these gaps without requiring an effective response. Changes in inventory methods or political amendments can also obscure lost progress. A target is more resilient when its legal duties and reporting requirements make such choices visible and challengeable.

Government should report gross emissions, land and engineered removals, international transfers and the resulting balance against the legal target. Where interim budgets or milestones exist, reporting should also show whether current policies are sufficient to meet them. Independent assessment can test removal assumptions and identify policy gaps. Lawmakers should specify when adverse findings require a public response or a corrected plan.

Engagement should test whether the pathway is credible, durable and fair. Ministries and lower levels of government should clarify responsibilities. Independent advisers, scientists and CDR experts should test delivery assumptions. Industry, workers, farmers, investors, communities and civil society should assess feasibility and distributional effects. Legislatures define oversight and remedies. Courts adjudicate disputes.

Supranational, national and regional/state lawmakers can establish binding climate targets within their legislative powers and assign duties to the responsible executive bodies. National and subnational targets need compatible accounts where their territories overlap. Courts and legislatures scrutinise compliance through the routes the relevant legal system provides. International agreements inform these choices, but the jurisdiction must establish its own applicable deadline and duties.