C Change Intervention Briefing: Net zero targets for the built environment

Report Summary: To enable and accelerate a global transition towards a net zero emission economy and society while limiting global heating to 1.5ºC requires precise estimates about how much carbon can still be emitted, and how quickly current emissions need to be reduced. Such calculations are called “pathways” to net zero, from which near- and long-term science-based targets can be calculated. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a collaboration between the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the World Resource Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has published a cross-sector pathway and corresponding annual reduction targets for the economy at large, and is now calculating sector-specific pathways for high-emission sectors including steel, chemicals and aviation.1 For each, there is a sector decarbonisation pathway with near- and long-term targets, as well as a sector guidance advising companies how to set their targets.