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Turning a groundswell of climate action into ground rules for net zero

Following a groundswell of voluntary net-zero targets by companies, regulators are increasingly introducing mandatory rules. If governments can overcome the barriers to rigour, coherence and fairness, such mandatory ‘ground rules’ have the potential to overcome the obstructionism that holds back a just climate transition.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Oxford Martin School for supporting this work. T.H., T.W., S.K.A., M.A., K.A., B.C., S.F., C.H., L.R. and S.S. are part of Oxford Net Zero, which is supported by the University of Oxford’s Strategic Research Fund.

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The production of this paper was coordinated by T.H. and T.W., who also had overall editorial responsibility. Drafting was led by T.H., T.W., L.D. and R.S.-S. Data gathering and analysis for the table was carried out by L.D. and K.A. All authors contributed to the content, structure and framing of the article.

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Correspondence to Thom Wetzer.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary Information

Data collection methodology for Box 1 table.

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Hale, T., Wetzer, T., Abebe, S.K. et al. Turning a groundswell of climate action into ground rules for net zero. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 306–308 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01967-7

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