Net Zero ASAP

The Net Zero ASAP project is research by Shannon A. Fiume exploring the fastest institutionally plausible pathway to operational Net Zero. This project's idea driver and cornerstone work is the 2030s Net Zero Playbook, a blueprint that identifies the earliest high-execution net-zero window as ~2037–2038, with ~2039 as the outer edge under very strong execution. The project has evolved to build ClimateSOS software to model current and prospective net-zero paths. 

Net Zero ASAP focuses on the multi-system innerconnectedness and synchronization: whether clean supply, deliverability, reliability, fossil exit, finance, workforce, and demand move together quickly enough for clean growth to become actual fossil displacement.

One of the key findings explored in the Playbook is that clean growth alone does not guarantee fossil displacement. The timing of net zero is determined by whether critical systems move together fast enough: clean generation; transmission, interconnection, and distribution; storage, flexibility, and reliability replacement; fossil retirement governance; finance and capital repricing; workforce and project throughput; demand growth landing on ready clean systems; and biosphere restoration aligned with planetary boundaries. When these remain synchronized, current growth rates can drive system transition while in parallel ensuring fossil phase-out. When they do not, clean and fossil systems expand in parallel, and timelines slip.

In addition to ClimateSOS's nascent ability to outline critical constraints to net zero, its AI governance is documented in its foundational charter. This charter originates from ClimateSOS's original safeguards, guardrails, and preserving rights, then extends them to encompass IEEE Ethically Aligned Design, and is inspired by and incorporates principles from Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI and responsible AI frameworks, OECD / UNESCO / Council of Europe AI governance principles, Planetary Boundaries and Doughnut-like sustainability frames, open-source / FOSS and open-design traditions, and model-card / AI documentation frameworks. The foundational charter is also seminally inspired by the Flourishing Systems Foundation community and their events at the Human Tech Week Flourish Corps Activation, and earlier Funding the Commons Flourishing Floor tracks.

Explore the Project

2030s Net Zero Playbook | ClimateSOS OpenSource Software and Community | NetZero ASAP Substack

Notable Works

Introductory Substack Essay: “Why Net Zero Isn’t Moving Fast Enough—and What It Would Take to Reach It by the Late 2030s.”

SF Climate Week 2026: What is Net Zero ASAP? Talk and Slides

Who This is For

This work is intended for people working in energy, finance, infrastructure, climate policy, grid planning, industrial decarbonization, AI infrastructure and governance, systems analysis, and planetary-boundary/climate-justice-aligned transition design.

Feedback

If one of these areas is your domain, I welcome technical review, critique, and collaboration.

Contact: shannon at autofracture.com