Moving Towards Net Carbon Neutral

You may have heard the term ‘net carbon neutral’ in the news of late. The concept is to not produce more carbon that we use, and therefore not add to the stocks in the atmosphere. With targets of 2050 and 2030 being floated, it is now down to governments and companies to look at how they can reach that balance, or net zero within that time frame.

Hydrogen replacing gas

We talked about the phase-out of natural gas, with hydrogen transition hoping to be complete by around 2040 in the UK. Expect to see far more hydrogen transition boilers and other technologies being introduced at pace.

Reforestation

Part of reaching net carbon neutral is around finding balance. Obviously, no matter how much we try to reduce CO2 outputs, there will still be some. Therefore offsetting that with CO2 balancing activities is just as important.

Trees absorb CO2 via photosynthesis in their leaves and use it to grow. Therefore the more trees we have, the more CO2 we can take out of the atmosphere. Deforestation has made our climate crisis worse, so reforestation is an important part of reparations.

Carbon Tax

It will be hard for some industries to reduce carbon emissions drastically in the timescales given. This is sometimes to do with cost, and sometimes technology – but often to do with profit margins. Governments are set to impost carbon tax on industries not moving fast enough to ensure these CO2 reduction targets are reached by the timelines laid out.

See what the UK achieved in their first year.