Looking Back; Looking Ahead: Background notes to Settling Climate Accounts: Navigating the Road to Net Zero

Accounting for climate has traced out a twisting path. Even now in the middle of our travels, it is perhaps less and less clear where we are going. Although seemingly well clouded in the rapid passage of time between 1990 and 2020, the origins of this odyssey were remarkably idealistic and ambitious. Looking back over the near thirty years since the Rio Earth Summit’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the aura of optimism and simplicity that surrounded and supported the initial collective attempt to define and manage climate action is somewhat painful to recall, let alone recapture.