This COP27 briefing lays out all of the false climate solutions that are on the table at the UN climate talks in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. It can be used to build the knowledge and capacity of civil society lobbying at the UNFCCC COP, and shared with policy makers and negotiators. 

Net zero, carbon markets, offsets, removals – anything but real emissions cuts

In the face of an undeniably changing climate, the fossil fuel industry and other high-emissions industries, as well as the banks, financiers and other actors who prop them up, have had to invent new tactics. They have shifted from ignoring climate change and its impacts, to now presenting themselves as the saviours, claiming to provide the world with magical fixes to a crisis they have caused. Net zero, carbon markets, carbon offsets and removal, nature based solutions, geoengineering – all of these are false solutions that allow polluters to continue polluting, doing everything but real emissions cuts. 

The COP27 briefing explains the meaning of these different terms and their recent rise to prominence on the international agenda. It highlights two examples of nature-based solutions – REDD+ and soil carbon farming – and explain the harms they cause for communities, especially in the global south. 

The road from Glasgow to COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh

The briefing outlines what happened at COP26 in Glasgow, and the latest development in the run up to the next climate conference. It looks at what is coming up at COP27 in terms of mitigation, emission avoidance, emission removals, nature based solutions and non-market approaches. It also brings forward our proposals for real solutions to the climate crisis – from accelerating the transition to a just, renewable energy system, to supporting Food Sovereignty and Community Forest Management, and putting binding rules on big business to reign back the power of transnational corporations.