New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C

Reducing human emissions has almost no effect on global temperatures.

An inconvenient new study published in Nature Communications highlights the double-bind consequences of maintaining the view that humans fundamentally control the global climate. This paradigm incentivizes scientists to publish studies that insist humans simultaneously cause both warming and cooling, flooding and drought, glacier retreat and advance, etc., with our everyday activities.

The inevitable and consistent conclusion inherent in most of these studies is that governmental policymaking is the key variable determining climate outcomes.

It is now commonly believed that humans fundamentally control the temperature of the air and ocean primarily by (1) increasing or reducing the atmospheric CO2 concentration, or by (2) increasing or reducing the air pollution (aerosols, particulates) associated with industrialization and energy consumption.

The authors of this study assert that the net climate sensitivity to a 24 ppm decrease in atmospheric CO2 by 2070 – achieved via China’s transition to “net zero” emissions alone – is just -0.03°C ±0.09°C.

This figure is derived by assuming that the global cooling alleged to be produced by a 24 ppm CO2 reduction over the next 50 years, -0.16°C, is almost completely offset by the global warming, +0.12°C, derived from China’s ongoing (successful) air pollution reduction policies during this same time period.

“The global warming from air pollutant reductions can largely offset the climate cooling benefit of CO2 reduction even by around 2060, when net-zero CO2 emissions are reached. The combined global effect is an insignificant cooling of -0.03K ±0.09K.”

Succinctly, the authors assert reducing anthropogenic emissions (both CO2 and aerosols, particulates) causes both cooling and warming simultaneously, and thus they effectively offset or cancel each other out. Ambitious CO2 reduction policies, such as the pursuit of “net zero” CO2 emissions in the coming decades, have almost no effect on climate “for half a century”.

“Even aggressive climate policies like carbon neutrality are not sufficient to cool the planet by ~2070 due to the competing effect of air pollutant reduction.”

So what is achieved by pursuing wildly expensive government-sponsored decarbonization policies? If these calculations are to be believed, a three-one-hundredths of a degree change in global temperature. So, zero.

Image Source: Zhao et al., 2026

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10 Comments

Denis

October 9, 2026 6:15 am

Do Happer and Wijngaarden agree with the 0.16C reduction in global temperature if CO2 is reduced by 24ppm?

ToldYouSo

Reply to Denis

October 9, 2026 7:55 am

Does anyone competent in science?

Ronald Stein

October 9, 2026 6:18 am

America has been very aggressive on net zero policies, but JUST refineries in America CANNOT be the cause of climate change!

The global oil refining landscape is set to expand, with 825 operational refineries worldwide in 2024 as 95% of the 8 billion living on this planet DO NOT live in America.

In the future, about 180 new refinery units are planned or announced in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

As of January 2025, there are 132 operable petroleum refineries in the United States. These facilities are primarily concentrated along the Gulf Coast, near crude oil production centers, navigable waterways, and major population hubs. Just three states—Texas, Louisiana, and California—account for approximately 45% of all U.S. refineries and 59% of total refining capacity.

The “other” 7.6 billion on this planet have more control of emissions from worldwide refineries.

strativarius

October 9, 2026 7:15 am

So, how do we cover all the bases with any credibility?
…

I know! Lets simply say humans simultaneously cause both warming and cooling. Job done.

Mark BLR

October 9, 2026 7:48 am

The inevitable and consistent conclusion inherent in most of these studies …

Conjecture : To get past the “climate change science gatekeepers” a minimum number of shibboleths must be included in any “climate change” related paper.

Note : It does not matter how many shibboleth-including papers are cited, no (genuinely) scientific conjecture can ever be “proven true”. What we are looking for is a single counter-example, which would definitively disprove the conjecture (/ theory / paradigm).

Let’s look at the Zhao et al paper and underline any potential shibboleths …

The first two sentences of the main paper :

Earth’s mean temperature increased to more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in 2024. To limit the continuous warming and avoid more disastrous consequences of climate change, achieving global carbon neutrality by the second half of the century is essential and urgent.

Oh dear …

The entire “Discussion” (ex-“Conclusions” ?) section of the paper :

The findings have important implications for the optimization of future climate and clean air policies in China. Even aggressive climate policies like carbon neutrality are not sufficient to cool the climate by ~2070 due to the compensating effect of air pollutant reductions, although a significant cooling effect is expected to unfold by 2100. We anticipate that the compensating effect would remain strong regardless of whether additional clean air policies were considered, since the synergistic effect of carbon neutrality, rather than the clean air policies, plays a dominant role (~80%) in reducing the emissions of most air pollutants. Moreover, the quest for Beautiful China [?] represents an indispensable and regret-free policy choice given its drastic public health benefits. For these reasons, the clean-air policies should be firmly upheld without delay. To achieve a net cooling effect earlier and with a maximized amplitude, we suggest that carbon neutrality should be achieved as early as possible and that negative carbon technologies be vigorously promoted in the long run, augmented by policies to rapidly reduce methane emissions (see more in Supplementary Note 3). Furthermore, future efforts could optimize the combinations of reduction measures across sectors by simultaneously considering climate benefits from reducing GHG and short-lived climate forcers, as well as public health benefits. This approach would ultimately identify the reduction pathway that delivers the greatest climate and health benefits while achieving carbon neutrality and clean air.
More importantly, our study has implications for sustainable development strategies in many other Global South countries that simultaneously grapple with high CO2 emissions and severe air pollution, as exemplified by India. Ongoing and future climate and clean air policies in these countries or regions are expected to substantially alleviate PM2.5 pollution. The anticipated warming effect could potentially be even larger than that of China, as the relatively lenient control measures currently in place in those countries indicate greater potential for future reductions in air pollutants. The widely used SSPs have not fully accounted for ambitious clean air goals, exemplified by the Beautiful China vision [?], and potential clean air policies in other Global South countries. In view of the challenges brought by air quality improvement, it is crucial to promote earlier and more stringent GHG reduction strategies worldwide—such as achieving net zero sooner and pursuing negative carbon emissions—to ensure that the temperature targets set by the Paris Agreement are met or the overshoot of those targets is limited in time as much as possible.

My original conjecture remains “not disproven”.

Oldseadog

Reply to Mark BLR

October 9, 2026 11:51 am

Or in Scots law until recently, “Not Proven”.

ToldYouSo

October 9, 2026 7:54 am

From the above article, referring to the Nature Communications article’s statements:

“This figure is derived by assuming that the global cooling alleged to be produced by a 24 ppm CO2 reduction over the next 50 years, -0.16°C, is almost completely offset by the global warming, +0.12°C, derived from China’s ongoing (successful) air pollution reduction policies during this same time period.”
(my bold emphasis added)

Well, first and foremost “this figure” assumes competent scientists—both amateur and professional—will buy into the assertion that temperature calculated/assumed over a 50-year period can be stated to a precision of +/- 0.01°C. What a joke!

Anyone familiar with the inherent accuracy, in-the-field repeatability, and instrumental drift of various instruments used to measure air temperatures, the variables of doing that both spatially and temporally across oceans, land and ice, and the intractable problems of obtaining a fair “global average” over a 50-year interval in the presence of a randomly-perturbed overall warming trend containing multiple, known climate cycles having periods of tens to hundreds of years, will realize this is simply BS masquerading as “science”.

Next: “derived by assuming” . . . I would certainly like to know how that works under The Scientific Method.

Why am I not surprised to see that this article was published by Nature Communications (with or without “peer review”)?