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Written Evidence Submitted by the University of East Anglia (UEA) I

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Written Evidence Submitted by the University of East Anglia (UEA) I PFI01017 Written evidence submitted by the University of East Anglia (UEA) i. About UEA The University of East Anglia (UEA) is an internationally renowned and research- intensive university, ranked in the world’s top 50 for research citations in the Times Higher Education Rankings 2020. UEA has a long history of pioneering climate research and is known throughout the world for its uniquely holistic and interdisciplinary approach. Founded in 1967, the School of Environmental Sciences is one of the longest established and largest departments of its kind in Europe, a 150-strong department bringing together natural and social sciences. UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education, the UK's most prestigious higher education award for world-class research, to recognise half a century of ground- breaking environmental science. The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) sits within the School of Environmental Sciences and is one of the world’s leading centres in the measurement of climate change. Given its expertise in this field, the University is keen to use our academic research to inform policy-making and the work of the Environmental Audit Committee. ii. Summary: UEA’s Submission This submission makes the case for the inclusion of the following issues relevant to priority topics the Committee has identified for the forthcoming year: Topic Issue 1: Monitoring ocean CO2 absorption Nature based solutions to climate change 2: Biomass Energy Carbon Capture & Nature based solutions to climate Storage (BECCS) change 3: Promoting more granular Community Energy decarbonisation projects 4: Community Energy Suppliers Community Energy Access to the National Grid School of Evironmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK 1. Monitoring ocean CO2 absorption To effectively monitor the ocean uptake of carbon dioxide emissions from human activity, a long-term funding model for accurate ocean CO2 observations and their synthesis is required. This relates to the Committee’s sugested focus on ‘Nature based solutions to climate change’. a. How effective is government policy in the policy area covered by each inquiry? Despite the clear policy implications of failing to measure the CO2 uptake by the oceans, funding for these activities has been largely overlooked by governments across the world, and is frequently inadequate. In the UK, funding has fallen through the gaps between different organisations and most long-term ocean CO2 data collection efforts have now stopped or are under threat. 70% of all global sustained ocean observations are funded by short-term research budgets, making the practice volatile and unpredictable. Climate change is a long-term issue and the system requires a suitable funding model if it is to achieve its objectives. Given the significance of the issue in question, the Government should consider instituting an agreement like that which exists between BEIS and the Met Office, designed to guarantee the long-term sustained atmospheric CO2 measurements in the UK. Given the global implications of current shortcomings on this issue, there needs to be a higher degree of international cooperation to find sustained solutions. Last year’s COP25 international climate conference was dubbed the ‘Blue COP’, aiming to address the nexus between ocean and climate change, and for the first time an ocean section was included in a COP decision text. While it is encouraging that policy makers are beginning to appreciate the significance of oceans in the climate crisis, it is vital that next year’s COP26 in Glasgow builds on this. Championing an international agreement to safeguard ocean CO2 monitoring would be a worthy cause for the British delegation, and would help cement the country’s reputation as a leading light in the fight against climate change. b. Why should the Committee consider a particular inquiry as a priority? To explain the importance of this research to policy, the Earth’s oceans have absorbed about 30% of the CO2 that humans have emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Without CO2 uptake by the oceans, climate change would be much more rapid and more severe. At the same time the continuing ocean CO2 uptake is changing the chemistry of the oceans, a process commonly referred to as ocean acidification. The amount of CO2 that oceans absorb differs across the world’s oceans and fluctuates over time, due to a multitude of variables. The past 20 years have seen significant multi-year variations in the uptake of CO2 across the world oceans; most significantly in the Southern Ocean, which is responsible for around a third of global ocean CO2 uptake. Failing to measure the CO2 uptake by the oceans risks undermining the Government’s efforts to fully engage with the aims of the Paris Agreement to limit average global warming to well below 2°C. c. Further Background Researchers from UEA have been closely involved in efforts to monitor oceanic CO2 uptake. Dr Dorothee Bakker is a Reader in the Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (COAS), in Environmental Sciences at UEA, Chair of the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT – a high-profile activity by scientists worldwide), and is available to provide expert insight. UK scientists, including Dr Bakker, actively contribute to the SOCAT and Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP) synthesis efforts of ocean CO2 measurements, which aid quantification of ocean CO2 uptake for the Global Carbon Budget, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change and the UNFCCC climate negotiations. 2. Biomass Energy Carbon Capture & Storage (BECCS) The Committee should scrutinise the merits of the UK Government utilising biomass energy carbon capture and storage as a method of achieving net zero by 2050. This relates to the Committee’s sugested focus on ‘Nature based solutions to climate change’. a. How effective is government policy in the policy area covered by each inquiry? The UK Government has promised to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and is introducing an Environment Bill in the current Parliament to support these efforts, with carbon capture and storage playing a key role. Biomass Energy in Carbon Capture makes a substantial contribution to the removal of emissions from the atmosphere. The Government’s UK Carbon Capture Usage and Storage Action Plan acknowledges that “Low carbon gas from biomass is one of the potential routes to decarbonise homes, businesses and industry currently served by the gas grid” and the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has suggested that producing negative emissions could be the most valuable use of biomass by 2050.1 Recent research anticipates that half of all global CO2 storage required by 2100 will occur in the USA, Western Europe, China and India, in line with current estimates of regional CO2 storage capacity. Current modelling research that informs international decision making has assumed strong policy action on carbon capture and storage (CCS) and implicitly assumes sufficient governance in place to ensure bioenergy feedstocks are produced sustainably (i.e. not impacting on food production or causing deforestation). However, only one-third of the bioenergy crops are grown in regions associated with more 1 BEIS, ‘The UK carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) deployment pathway: an action plan’ (November 2018); Committee on Climate Change, ‘Biomass in a low-carbon economy’ (2018). developed governance frameworks. Scenario planning of future CCS deployment rates suggests expanding CCS will likely be very challenging compared to historical rates of fossil, renewable or nuclear technologies and may be entirely dependent on stringent policy action, which the Committee should consider.2 Modelling suggests half of the biomass resource is derived from agricultural and forestry residues and half from dedicated bioenergy crops grown on abandoned agricultural land and expansion into grasslands (i.e. land for forests and food production is protected). Poor governance of the sustainability of bioenergy crop production can significantly limit the amount of CO2 removed by BECCS, therefore the estimates of the amount of BECCS that could be delivered are potentially over optimistic and rely on policys and governance structures that do not yet exist. b. Why should the Committee consider a particular inquiry as a priority? The Committee should consider the feasiblity and progress towards the Government’s carbon emissions target in light of the reality of global participation and the latest research findings. As the Committee on Climate Change has stated, “Maximising absorption of carbon from the atmosphere through the strategic use of land and biomass stocks is required to meet the goals of the Paris [Climate Change] Agreement”.3 Assessing the UK’s plans in light of the reality of global co-operation is therefore crucial ahead of the COP26 conference, which the UK is due to host, and enabling the UK to provide global leadership on this agenda. c. Further Background New research from the Feasibility of Afforestation and Biomass Energy in Carbon Capture and Storage in Greenhouse Gas Removal (FAB- GGR) project, due later this year, will better define the real-world feasibility and consequences of large-scale afforestation and biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) approaches to greenhouse gas removal (GGR). These two greenhouse gas removal approaches have a common basis in growing biomass on available land and play the largest roles of any GGR approaches in future low emission scenarios that keep global mean temperature increase to below 1.5C and 2C. UEA’s Dr Naomi Vaughan is a leading carbon dioxide removal scientist, studying the technologies and methods of removing CO2 from the atmosphere in the road to achieve net zero, and currently leads the FAB-GGR project. 3. Promoting more granular decarbonisation projects 2 N. Vaughan et al., ‘Evaluating the use of biomass energy with carbon capture and storage in low emission scenarios’, Envrionmental Research Letters 13/4 (March 2018).
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