In my last article in this two-part series on net zero, I explored the term’s meaning and implications in the fields of research, government and the built environment.
My key takeaways are as follows:
- Net zero has become a controversial, hotly debated topic – particularly in the political sphere
- From a scientific standpoint, net zero means balancing human-produced greenhouse gases with human-actioned removals of them
- The UK government’s legally-binding target to reach net zero is 2050
- This target does not represent a defined plan, but rather an ambition to reach
In order to reach this ambition, however, it is first necessary to dispel some myths surrounding net zero – myths that potentially create barriers to achieving it.
Carbon Brief debunk the evidence-lacking claim that net zero will bankrupt us
Amy McEwen Policy and Public Affairs Graduate for Mitsubishi Electric
Myth 1: “Net zero is the same thing as carbon neutral”
Often, net zero is used interchangeably with the term ‘carbon neutral’.
It’s easy to think that balancing emissions produced with emissions removed (net zero) would mean ‘carbon neutral’, but there are crucial nuances that differentiate the two.
The SBTi’s Net-Zero Jargon Buster details these as follows:
- Carbon neutral counts the use of carbon offsets (projects which remove carbon from the atmosphere to counterbalance some or all Green House Gas (GHG) emissions produced by a certain company/activity).
- Carbon neutral doesn’t necessarily refer to greenhouse gases other than CO2.
While the net zero ambition advocates for a reduction in emissions, carbon neutrality doesn’t necessarily – at least not direct reductions.
For example, as a carbon offset, a business may choose to invest in a forest-protection project where enough trees are planted to sequester the same amount of CO2 they are producing from their fleet vehicles.
While this may seem like a ‘balanced’ approach, the business manages to avoid taking direct action to reduce their emissions (e.g. transitioning to EVs). This becomes problematic if, for whatever reason, the offset activity is not completed (so there is still an emissons imbalance).
If the forest-protection project fails to deliver, and the business is not taking steps to reduce their emissions, they are essentially ‘getting away’ with what Josh Gabbatiss of Carbon Brief describes as a “licence to pollute”.
To avoid this grey area and make a real difference towards net zero, businesses will have to put in the work, starting with reducing the emissions they produce and only using offsetting for a small remainder of unavoidable emissions… and this means reducing all emissions, not just fixating on CO2!
Myth 2: “Net zero means absolute zero”
Notice how I mentioned ‘unavoidable emissions’? These are greenhouse gases that cannot be completely eliminated and so remain even after all viable reduction measures have taken place.
Examples of unavoidable emissions include greenhouse gases emitted in the production of cement or steel, and methane produced by livestock.
Net zero allows for a small amount of these unavoidable emissions, which can be either absorbed by nature, or safely captured and stored underground (known as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), an idea that Myles Allen strongly advocates for.
Absolute zero’, on the other hand, is the total elimination of GHG emissions – no offsets, and no CCS; on an organisational level, it’s described by the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) as occurring ‘when there are no GHG emissions attributable to an organisation’s activities across all scopes’.
It is a more extreme approach as it doesn’t account for those unavoidable emissions, which the UK government addresses in its 2022 policy paper ‘Why Net Zero’, acknowledging that ‘sectors such as industry, agriculture, and aviation are difficult to decarbonise completely’.
Often ‘net zero’ is mistaken for ‘absolute zero’ – perhaps as many tend to fixate on the ‘zero’ part, thinking it a misnomer in ‘net zero’ if unavoidable emissions are taken into account.
However, what we should be focusing on here is the ‘net’; this suggests that the aim is to balance emissions produced with emissions removed, and those factored-in unavoidable emissions are balanced via offsets or carbon capture and storage.
Myth 3: “Net zero is too expensive to achieve”
Another common myth surrounding net zero is, as I highlighted in my last article, that it is too expensive to achieve.
In 2025, Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch even claimed that it would be ‘impossible’ to reach net zero by 2050 “without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”.
Simon Evans, a climate and energy expert and policy editor at Carbon Brief, criticised Badenoch for her evidence-lacking claim, pointing out the research by the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and National Energy System Operator (NESO) on ‘affordable’ pathways to net zero, which save us money by fundamentally reducing our exposure to fossil fuel markets.
On the other side, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) published a report called ‘The Cost of Net Zero’, in which both the CCC and NESO’s analyses are condemned for their lack of clarity on the expensive upfront costs of renewables and assumptions about their operational savings.
A perspective the IEA’s report fails to acknowledge, however, is the cost of a ‘business as usual’ scenario with current fossil fuel reliance, and what the costs of that would be. As Mike Thompson, the Chief Economist at NESO said in his rejection of the report, ‘we’d still spend most of this without net zero…Unless you think we’ll stop driving cars, stop heating homes and stop using energy – for anything!’
Beyond just looking at the costs of not decarbonising, we should be looking at net zero as an opportunity for economic growth in the UK, as ex-Conservative member (who signed the UK’s net zero commitment into law) Chris Skidmore argues in his 2023 report ‘Mission Zero’.
Skidmore states that ‘the global market opportunity for UK businesses from net zero could be worth more than £1 trillion in the period 2021 to 2030’ – this entails embracing the opportunities of innovative, green technologies, and ramping up high-skilled jobs in the green energy sector for future generations.
My colleague Chris Newman broke down the 340-page Skidmore Report in a series of Hub articles which you can read here:
Myth 4: “Net zero is the government’s plan to reduce emissions”
Ultimately, while the government and the research bodies that advise it have lots to say on how and why we should be aiming for net zero, there is no single, grand plan for us to follow to get there.
As I wrote in my last article, net zero is not a defined plan, but rather an ambition to drive towards. More broadly, the net zero ambition is about driving positive change into the future, in the forms of:
- Decarbonising our systems, buildings and infrastructure
- Creating more jobs in renewable energy
- Moving away from a reliance on the volatile fossil fuel market
With less than 24 years now until the 2050 target, government, businesses and citizens all have a part to play (this means not just passing the buck – each party expecting the other to take action, as in Pierre Peyretou’s ‘Triangle of Inaction’).
At Mitsubishi Electric, we believe that all of us have a role to play, whether business, individual, or government. All of us need to be proactive about the part we have to play in helping decarbonise the built environment.
Our Corporate strapline is ‘Changes for the Better’ and our founder developed the following statement to explain that: ‘We make products of the highest quality to benefit society’.
For us here in the UK, this means delivering innovative, quality heating, cooling and ventilation solutions to help our customers and society achieve not just comfortable buildings, but ones that use less energy and produce less emissions – changing our built environment for a better, net zero future.
Amy McEwen is a Policy and Public Affairs Graduate for Mitsubishi Electric
