Essay by Eric Worrall
Bloomberg was until recently Net Zero’s chief champion. But now it was always obvious that Net Zero ambitions were not grounded in reality.
Net Zero Is Dead. Long Live Renewable Energy
February 25, 2026 at 2:00 PM GMT+10
By Javier BlasJavier Blas is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. He is coauthor of “The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources.”
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In diplomacy, words matter. When the world’s richest nations got together in 2022 for their biennial energy meeting, their communique mentioned “net zero” 13 times; in 2024, the references went up to 15. After last week’s gathering? Just one occurrence — and that was to underline the lack of universal support. The word-count collapse is illustrative of the direction of global energy policy: Net zero is, effectively, dead.
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Even at the peak of its popularity, net zero looked far-fetched. One had to believe, as a matter of faith, that consumption of oil, natural gas and coal would drop following stylized cliff-like curves. With current energy-related annual CO2 emissions running above 35,000 million metric tons, reducing them to something that would equal net zero was an impossible task. On current trends, emissions are likely to remain close to current levels for the next 25 years. Even if countries adopt most of the energy policies they’ve announced — a big if — they’ll remain above 25,000 million tons a year until the middle of the century.
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A few nations insisted on keeping the net-zero idea alive — notably the UK and Spain …
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But don’t mistake the death of net zero for the end of renewable energy. The latter is very much alive. For the foreseeable future, electricity will be the fastest growing form of energy — and renewables will cover a significant chunk of the increase. The world will remain addicted to fossil fuels, but more of its additional power needs will be covered by solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and other green sources.
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Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-25/climate-change-net-zero-is-dead-long-live-renewable-energy
What a change a few years can make. Back in 2024, a Bloomberg columnist pronouncing the obituary of Net Zero would have been unthinkable.
So what happened to produce such a radical about face? One possibility, AI suddenly became really important in the investment landscape – and Bloomberg is a big player in the AI investment space.
And AI is incompatible with Net Zero.
Are solar panels and possibly even wind turbines here to stay? Absolutely. There are plenty of niche uses of solar energy where it makes sense, including in some cases powering remote sites, where the cost of importing energy exceeds the cost of a solar / battery system.
But until there is a major breakthrough, such as consumer acceptance of micro nuclear fission, or an energy breakthrough such as small portal nuclear fusion, or until we completely run out of recoverable fossil fuel, there will be no Net Zero.
