Judging by the growing number of companies vowing to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions to zero these days, it may seem like the corporate world is finally taking the climate crisis seriously. According to the Net Zero Tracker, more than one-third of the world's largest publicly traded companies have announced such targets, up from one-fifth in late 2020.
While some of these corporate pledges appear to be genuine, others are clearly a fig leaf to obscure pollution as usual. One can easily imagine an oil executive telling an airline boss: "A net-zero target, some ads featuring trees, and everyone will love us."
