Current ‘net-zero’ schemes that use land alone to remove the world’s carbon emissions by 2050 would require at least 1.6 billion hectares of new forests, equivalent to five times the size of India or more than all the farmland on the planet, reveals an Oxfam has said.

Oxfam’s report Tightening the Net says that too many governments and corporations are hiding behind unreliable, unproven and unrealistic ’carbon removal’ schemes in order to claim their 2050 climate change plans will be ‘net-zero’. Their sudden rush of ‘net-zero’ promises are relying too much on vast swathes of land to plant trees in order to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. At the same time, they are failing to cut emissions quickly or deeply enough to avert catastrophic climate breakdown.

The ‘net-zero’ climate promises of four of the world’s largest oil and gas corporations ― BP, Eni, Shell and Total Energies ― could require them foresting an area of land more than twice the size of the UK to achieve net zero by 2050.

Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam GB, said: “Too many companies and governments are hiding behind the smokescreen of ‘net zero’ to continue dirty business-as-usual activities. A prime example of the doublethink we are seeing is the oil and gas sector trying to justify its ongoing extraction of fossil fuels by promising unrealistic carbon removal schemes that require ludicrous amounts of land.

"The UK Government needs to be a credible broker for a deal that can stop the planet overheating when it hosts the COP26 climate talks in November – so it is imperative that it stops licensing new oil and gas in the North Sea, including a possible new oilfield near the Shetland Islands.”

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