Conclusion: Accounting for Climate

The chapters of this volume offer empirical studies of Net ZeroNet Zero in practice. Taken together, they expose a series of unsettled accounts: problematic and persistent features of Net ZeroNet Zero implementation that bring into question both its accountabilityAccountability and credibilityCredibility in the triple senses of accounting for climate. These open accounts defy and resist consensual or authoritative settlement and increase incentives to game the regime, potentially redirecting its outcomes away from the narrative that justified Net Zero’s ascendance. The roster of open accounts can be associated categorically with: (1) increasing levels of noise in the information Net Zero accounting sends out to its users; (2) contested rules over Net Zero’s boundaries for coverage; (3) unclear enforceability of future-centric commitments that create incentives to defer compliance and transfer responsibilities (i.e. timing); and, (4) undefined management obligations that both over-simplify risk and, through decentralized accounts, fail to add up to a coordinated climate policy.