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Principles for Thinking About Carbon Dioxide Removal in Just Climate Policy

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Principles for Thinking About Carbon Dioxide Removal in Just Climate Policy ll Commentary Principles for Thinking about Carbon Dioxide Removal in Just Climate Policy David R. Morrow,1,* Michael S. Thompson,2 Angela Anderson,3 Maya Batres,4 Holly J. Buck,5 Kate Dooley,6 Oliver Geden,7,8 Arunabha Ghosh,9 Sean Low,10 Augustine Njamnshi,11 John Noel,€ 4 Olu´ fẹ́mi O. Ta´ ı´wo` ,12 Shuchi Talati,3 and Jennifer Wilcox13 1Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy, American University, Washington, DC, USA 2Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, New York, NY, USA 3Union of Concerned Scientists, Washington, DC, USA 4Independent scholar, USA 5UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles, CA, USA 6Australian-German Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia 7German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, Germany 8International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria 9Council on Energy, Environment, and Water, New Delhi, India 10Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany 11Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance, Nairobi, Kenya 12Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA 13Chemical Engineering Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA *Correspondence: [email protected] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.07.015 Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is rising up the climate-policy agenda. Four principles for thinking about its role in climate policy can help ensure that CDR supports the kind of robust, abatement-focused long-term climate strategy that is essential to fair and effective implementation. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR), some- agencies are wrestling with the chal- Different people and institutions will times called carbon removal or negative lenge of forming positions on CDR, have different expectations about long- emissions, is the practice of capturing including whether to support it at all term climate strategies. These include dif- carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and, if so, what mix of approaches to ferences over the kinds of social, eco- and storing it for long periods of time. support, what kind of policies should nomic, and technological transformations There are many approaches to CDR, govern it, and how to connect it to other that societies should or will use to decar- including nature-based solutions, such elements of climate policy. The following bonize, the kinds of policies societies as ecosystem restoration, and more engi- four principles crystallize some of the should adopt to spur those transforma- neered approaches, such as direct air key ideas that shape our own thinking tions, and the urgency and speed with capture with carbon storage.1 These about CDR. We present them here in which the world can completely decar- encompass a variety of options for storing the hope that others will find them useful bonize. These differences imply slightly carbon, ranging from biomass and soils to as they deliberate about their own different roles for CDR as part of the oceans and geological reservoirs to long- positions. long-term strategy or different roles for lived products such as timber buildings or different approaches to CDR at different cement (Figure 1). CDR does not include Don’t Forget the Long Game times. In particular, some might see a fossil carbon capture and storage (CCS), First, CDR is only one part of a long-term role for CDR in mopping up residual emis- such as CCS on a gas-fired power climate strategy. Cutting greenhouse gas sions while we figure out how to decar- plant, or carbon capture and use that em- emissions must remain at the center of bonize harder-to-abate sectors such as beds carbon in short-lived products, such that strategy: CDR would be too slow, construction, heavy industry, and heavy as synthetic fuels; they might reduce expensive, and technically uncertain to transport. Others might prefer to limit emissions, but neither of these technolo- replace the need for rapid emissions re- CDR to compensating only for agriculture gies removes carbon dioxide from the ductions.3 Furthermore, attempting to and land-use emissions or to use it after atmosphere. do so would mean missing out on the so- complete decarbonization to draw down CDR is rising rapidly up climate-policy cial and environmental benefits of transi- ‘‘legacy carbon’’ remaining in the atmo- agendas because it could provide a tioning to clean energy. Adaptation, both sphere from past emissions. useful—perhaps essential—supplement incremental and transformative, also It turns out that these disagreements to emissions abatement as the world plays an essential role, as do measures have relatively little impact on the question works toward meeting the Paris Agree- to address loss and damage. The world of whether to devote time and resources to ment goals for limiting global warming.2 needstodoallofthesethingstofight CDR research, development, and deploy- As a result, civil society organizations, climate change—a ‘‘both/and’’ approach ment now. Even if the world can philanthropic funders, and government rather than ‘‘either/or.’’ completely decarbonize quickly without 150 One Earth 3, August 21, 2020 ª 2020 Elsevier Inc. ll Commentary Figure 1. Some Proposed Methods of Carbon Dioxide Removal Some of the many approaches that people have proposed for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it are presented here without assessment of their respective potential for removing or storing carbon or their social, environmental, or economic sustainability, which will vary between methods and depend on the details and context of implementation. These methods are often divided into ‘‘natural climate solutions’’ and ‘‘engineered’’ ap- proaches, although the precise boundary between these categories is contested and somewhat vague. Illustration by Matt Twombly. CDR, almost any path to decarbonization proaches to CDR have different resource lated in the abstract, such as cost and to- still leaves the world facing dangerous requirements and different social and tal carbon sequestered. Those aspects of climate impacts.2 By cleaning up legacy environmental impacts.1,7 Whether it is CDR matter, but a complete assessment carbon, CDR could lower carbon dioxide an individual farmer adopting cover-crop of CDR requires assessing not only cost concentrations and reduce climate risk, rotations or a large corporation building and sequestration potential but also envi- though lowering concentrations signifi- a direct air capture facility, the value of ronmental and social impacts. cantly would require removing hundreds any CDR project depends not just on Three questions about social and polit- of billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide.4 whether and how much carbon it can ical context deserve special attention. The To reach that scale, societies can begin sequester at what financial cost but also first is whether a particular project, pro- rolling out some approaches now, such on the project’s environmental, social, gram, or policy comports with equity and as ecosystem restoration, informed by de- and political impacts. In some cases, the principle of common but differentiated cades of experience at the intersection of especially with natural climate solutions, responsibility and respective capabilities. land management and climate policy. positive impacts could justify adoption CDR is fundamentally about cleaning up Other approaches, such as enhanced independently of the climate benefits. In pollution. It makes sense for polluters to mineralization, require further research, others, negative impacts could outweigh pay for it and to have excess costs fall development, demonstration, and deploy- any climate benefits. In all cases, those on those who are best able to bear ment. Whatever mix of approaches soci- impacts depend on the context and de- them. It would be patently unfair for the eties adopt, scaling up CDR capacity to tails of the project and not just on the Global North to pass the responsibility the multi-gigaton scale, if feasible, would particular technology or practice in ques- for cleaning up carbon pollution to the take several decades.5 Therefore, if we tion. For example, compare a small bio- Global South, which contributed much want to remove hundreds of billions of energy with carbon capture and storage less to the problem. Some observers metric tons by the end of this century, (BECCS) facility fueled by local municipal worry that the very corporations that whether as part of a net-zero strategy or waste with a BECCS system in which contributed so much to carbon pollution to clean up legacy carbon,6 now is the huge swathes of commercially farmed could use CDR to evade accountability, time to begin developing and adopting land provide switchgrass to fuel large po- but it could be that assigning these corpo- appropriate policies for CDR research, wer plants that pipe carbon dioxide long rations responsibility to undertake or development, and rollout. distances for sequestration. These two finance CDR offers a way to hold them At the same time, thinking only about the approaches would have very different im- accountable. Thus, a key social and polit- long game isn’t enough. Reducing emis- pacts, which could include impacts on ical question about any CDR undertaking sions and adapting to climate change land use, water use, infrastructure needs, is the extent to which the costs and the must remain top priorities in the near term. food prices, and biodiversity. Evaluating social and environmental burdens associ- CDR at the level of broad technologies ated with it fall on those who bear the It’s Not All about the Carbon or practices obscures these differences. greatest responsibility for the problem. Second, social, economic, and environ- As a result, technology-level assessments The second question is about the over- mental impacts matter. Different ap- tend to focus on things that can be calcu- all political and economic context in which One Earth 3, August 21, 2020 151 ll Commentary CDR would be deployed in the future. grind the rocks, and the two approaches heavily on vast plantations of bioenergy Many civil society organizations argue involve very different social, economic, crops for BECCS to keep warming below that nothing short of radical social trans- and environmental systems.
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