As the world gears up for COP27, it is vital to understand what progress countries have made to reach the Paris goals. A large number of countries have announced net-zero emission pledges (NZEP). Inhwan Ko, Nives Dolšak, and Aseem Prakash analyze these pledges in their paper published in PLOS Climate [journals.plos.org]. The credibility of NZEP varies because countries have committed to different target years. Moreover, some pledges outline sectoral as opposed to economy-wide targets and vary in how they monitor progress. To assess the pledge’s credibility, Ko, Dolšak, and Prakash create a novel NZEP stringency score. They find that climate leaders with a higher share of renewable energy in final energy consumption are more likely to have announced more stringent NZEPs. Surprisingly, economic development, the size of the economy, countries’ embeddedness in international environmental treaties, and the robustness of domestic civil society are not associated with NZEP stringency.