Are Net-Zero Pledges Red Herrings to Escape Meaningful Decarbonization?

• Pages: 43-57
• Date: 01 January 2025
• Author: Keemiya Pourmonir
• Subject Matter: Civil Law

Published in The Construction Lawyer Volume 44, Number 1, ©2025 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with

permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any

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Forum on Construction Law The Construction Lawyer Winter 2025

43

Are Net-Zero Pledges Red Herrings to Escape

Meaningful Decarbonization?

By Keemiya Pourmonir

Keemiya Pourmonir is a researcher in construction and sustainability law at Loyola College of Law in

New Orleans, Louisiana. She thanks (a) the participants of the 2023 Blueprint Conference for helpful

suggestions and innovative approaches in the areas of construction and sustainability in support of the

industry; (b) Adrian D’Arcy, Adjunct Professor of Law; and (c) Loyola College of Law for supporting her

work. Her article is the winning entry in the ABA Forum on Construction Law’s 2024 Student Writing

Competition.

In 2015, the United States was one of 196 parties to sign the Paris Agreement, which, among other things,

signied a legal and binding commitment to decarbonization. Per the Paris Agreement, the United States

pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Net-zero emissions rely on the notion that the output

greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for a specic period of time would be counteracted by the amount of

GHG emissions that are mitigated or taken out of the atmosphere during that same period. It is widely

accepted that net-zero initiatives cannot be achieved through the mitigation of GHG emissions alone, and

that the reduction of emissions will be necessary. In 2022, Congress released the “Climate Crisis Action

Plan” that provided guidance on ways to expedite the United States’ response to the challenges posed by

the climate crisis and to meet the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.1 This guidance recognized several

barriers to reducing carbon emissions, including investment in the nation’s critical infrastructure and the

elimination of barriers for clean energy technologies.2

A country’s decarbonization performance is often predicated on the regulatory and legislative environment

surrounding the transition.3 Distinguishing the perceived and actual legal barriers to the achievement of

net-zero requires a careful analysis of the role net-zero pledges play in the fight against climate change.

One of the primary actions for the United States is to distinguish between the perceived and actual legal

barriers to the achievement of net-zero to better understand the regulatory and legislative environment

with respect to net-zero emissions and decarbonization efforts. This review requires a careful analysis of

the role net-zero pledges play in the fight against climate change.

Again, a major barrier to clean energy technologies is the patent and latent legal ambiguities affecting

the achievement of net-zero goals with respect to investments in the United States’ critical infrastructure.

Federal agencies have enthusiastically charged toward improvements in response to recognition by

Congress for the need to improve the resilience of this critical infrastructure. Unfortunately, this

enthusiasm has proven somewhat futile. As clean energy technologies continue to rapidly emerge, federal

agencies have struggled, and will continue to struggle, to mitigate the risks associated with the acquisition

of these technologies in the absence of clear and established regulations and legal precedent.

Net-Zero Pledges

Several countries have started making pledges to achieve net-zero emissions by the year 2050, with the

United States following suit. This consolidated effort seeking to expedite decarbonization is, in part,

responsive to the realization that increased natural disasters and surface temperatures across the globe

will likely have catastrophic and irreversible impacts. Net-zero pledges have become the gold standard for