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Offsets are better than nothing, but they're not sustainable. Low-hanging fruit will be used up at some point, and actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere is really expensive (most optimistic figure I've seen anywhere estimates $50/ton for the mid-to-long term). So the incentive is to push for actually zero emissions instead of net zero.

And as sibling comment mentions, climate change is bad for business too, so that's the incentive for net-negative.

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Is $50/ton really so expensive? At that price you could sequester average household emissions for $375/yr.

Can't help but note, flood or wildfire insurance (for people in risk areas) has climbed in cost a lot more than $375/yr.

$375/household/yr sounds downright cheap to me, if it gets us out of this hurricane/wildfire/drought/flood cycle.

I get that, but they haven't actually arrived at zero. They've arrived at their version of zero, and thus have incentive to get to actual zero, since they're already at "zero".

Maintaining "net zero" takes a lot of work/money. It's not something you can do once. Every time you put carbon into the atmosphere, you have to go buy an offset. Over time those offsets get more expensive.

Wouldn't they be cheaper as businesses invest to use less carbon over time.

Like I said, low hanging fruit goes first. Later efficiency gains will be more expensive.

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