“I wanted to know whether ‘real zero’, rather than offset-dependent net zero, was achievable.”
Over almost two years, I travelled through Brazil, New Zealand, Australia and Europe, meeting farmers, scientists, manufacturers, government leaders and entrepreneurs. I began with what I thought was just a pipe dream, with large-scale agriculture standing in the way of any transition. But I returned convinced that the move away from fossil fuels is not only possible but is already underway, driven not by ideology or regulation, but by economics.
In Brazil, soya is fixing all of its own nitrogen, saving farmers billions of pounds a year, biological pest controls operate across millions of hectares, and waste biomass generates significant amounts of electricity and gas. In Australia, remote farms are irrigating with energy from solar and batteries. In New Zealand, seaweed biostimulants are halving nitrogen use. Across Europe, farmers are driving electric tractors, generating biomethane from slurry, growing sustainable fibres for a fossil-free fashion industry, and using AI-guided lasers to replace herbicides. In almost every case, the people leading these changes were doing so because the numbers worked, and ‘and any environmental convictions were only secondary.