"Net zero emissions" climate targets set by governments and companies could delay the rapid reductions in emissions that high-emitting countries and companies urgently need to make, a report from Oxfam International warns.

According to the report, Tightening the Net: Net zero climate targets — implications for land and food equity (42 pages, PDF), such net zero targets rely on the use of vast areas of land in low-income countries to capture carbon emissions instead of limiting emissions — for example, by ending the use of coal, oil, and natural gas for electricity and oil for cars. Aiming for net zero emissions by planting trees also could lead to an explosion in demand for land, which could increase hunger and exacerbate land inequality. Oxfam has calculated that the total land required for planned carbon removal could reach five times the size of India, or the equivalent of all the current farmland on the planet. In India, traditional lands have been fenced off as part of an afforestation drive, and communities who have rights to use that land have been forcibly evicted.

Instead of relying heavily on land-based carbon removal in low-income countries, which helps big emitters sidestep the actions required to cut emissions, the report's authors argue, we need to manage land in ways that tackle climate change and hunger together and strengthen the rights and resilience of communities. While land-based climate mitigation actions are vital, they must take a "food-first" approach: protect and restore natural forests and ecosystems; recognize and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities as owners and stewards of the land; support more ecologically sustainable farming and grazing practice to increase carbon storage in soils; and implement agroforestry systems that help address soil degradation and improve yields and productivity while storing carbon.

Ahead of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's Glasgow Climate Change Conference this fall, the report calls on governments and companies to focus on cutting carbon emissions in the near term — by 2030, rather than mid-century; set more transparent targets that distinguish between reducing and removing carbon emissions; cut emissions in their own operations and supply chains first and foremost and phase our support for new fossil fuel production; and, where they do use land for climate mitigation, prioritize food security and build the resilience of small-scale farmers.

"Carbon emissions need to be reduced now," the report's authors write," and land-based climate solutions must center 'food-first' approaches that help achieve both zero emissions and zero hunger."