The Aspirational Politics of Global Net Zero

“Global net zero” refers to a scientifically informed target of balancing greenhouse gas emissions globally to limit the adverse impacts of climate change, as well as to a politically determined international goal with a 2050 deadline. Amid a proliferation of state and nonstate commitments to the goal, research on the politics of net zero remains limited. Numerous scholars have conceptualized this goal as an international norm. This article challenges this conceptualization, arguing that net zero is more appropriately understood as an aspiration. I show how this conceptualization elucidates important climate governance challenges and helps to set more accurate expectations about the effectiveness of standards and enforcement mechanisms for achieving the goal. I argue that the case of net zero undermines conjectures in current theorizing on aspiration in international politics, especially the expectation that actors will not face social consequences for failing to achieve international aspirational goals provided they make at least some progress. This expectation relies on assumptions about aggregate welfare improvement without giving full consideration to how goal setting facilitates potentially cost-inducing blame shifting.