There is a term burned into the brains of every person remotely worried about the future of the planet: net zero. The idea is that we need to collectively reach carbon neutral status, which means we’d be removing the same amount of carbon from the environment as we are emitting. While achieving this by the year 2050 has been the stated goal of most climate plans, including the Paris Agreement, there’s something more ambitious — and potentially necessary — that experts, activists, and some world leaders are setting their eyes on: carbon negative.
Given that we’re largely struggling to get on path to net zero, setting the sights even higher may seem misguided. But there are some companies and countries that have already achieved carbon negative status, or at the very least have plans to do so in the near future. Even the United States, one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world, has made an effort to target this goal.
