Second, all governments must follow the lead of the 75 countries that have committed to present net-zero emission strategies for 2050 by 2020 or to commit to achieving climate neutrality by 2050 or sooner. We need all the countries that will rise next year. Thirdly, we need to make national commitments more ambitious in sectors that were not an integral part of the picture in 2015, such as.B. nature-based solutions. Beyond this role as a political attractor at the international level, many of the commitments to climate neutrality have emerged as a result of extensive national processes. These processes, particularly in the context of the “long-term development strategies for low greenhouse gas emissions” codified in Article 4.19 of the PA, may partly explain the five-year delay between the adoption of the agreement and the recent triggering of announcements on climate neutrality. This was probably the price to pay to make climate neutrality useful, to generate more ambition in concrete national plans. In this context, climate neutrality can contribute to the gradual alignment of countries` successive NDC submissions with the overall temperature target. Five years after the huge success of COP21 in Paris, it is time to assess the added value of the new multilateral climate regime. By becoming the measure of ambition, climate neutrality has played a key role in keeping alive and strengthening the “spirit of Paris”, consisting of five-year cycles that support a gradual increase in ambition and an acceleration of the transition. Climate neutrality will continue to play a key role in the coming years.
In particular, by facilitating the harmonisation of visions between the different actors in the transition, climate neutrality should contribute to highlighting a structured agenda for cooperation towards the common objective in the 2023 global inventory approach. This next important milestone on the international climate agenda after COP26, codified at the PA to take stock of progress and collective actions, will be the time to prove that the “spirit of Paris” can be transformed into concrete plans and actions up to the size of the challenge. Another way to reduce emissions and achieve climate neutrality is to offset emissions produced in one sector by reducing emissions from another place. . . .
