Tag: CDR

Podcasts

Plan Sea: Ocean Interventions to Address Climate Change

podcast by Wil Burns & Anna Medlener (Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy, American University), 1h

In this episode Lennart Bach, at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, and Veronica Tamsitt, Head of Oceanography at the mCDR MRV company, Submarine, discuss some of the most pertinent issues to assessing the potential role of Ocean Iron Fertilization (OIF) in a marine CDR portfolio, including costs, risks, and legal considerations.

LINK

#
Peer-reviewed Publications

Abegg et al. (2024): Expert Insights into Future Trajectories: Assessing Cost Reductions and Scalability of Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies

Manon Abegg, Zeynep Clulow, Lucrezia Nava, David M. Reiner IN: Frontiers in Climate, doi:10.3389/fclim.2024.1331901

This study explores the future costs and scalability of DACCS and BECCS to advance net-zero goals. The authors analyze expert opinions on these technologies’ potential costs and deployment scales for 2030, 2040, and 2050. Data was collected from 34 experts, comprising 21 DACCS and 13 BECCS specialists. They provided 90% confidence interval estimates and ‘best estimates’ for future costs and deployment under two International Energy Agency (IEA) policy scenarios -Stated Policies (STEPS) and Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE).

LINK

#
Peer-reviewed Publications

Nature – Prütz et al. (2024): A taxonomy to map evidence on the co-benefits, challenges, and limits of carbon dioxide removal

Ruben Prütz, Sabine Fuss, Sarah Lück, Leon Stephan, Joeri Rogelj IN: Communications Earth & Environment, 5, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01365-z

Recent exponential growth in literature is rapidly filling this gap but makes the synthesis of the evidence on carbon dioxide removal side effects increasingly challenging. Here the authors address this issue by mapping this literature and proposing a taxonomy to synthesize and compare evidence on carbon dioxide removal side effects. The expansive evidence warrants the use of machine learning to systematically select relevant research and provide an inventory of nearly 400 co-benefits, challenges, and limits.

LINK

#
Media

Exploring Durability Curves — An Enhanced Lens for Evaluating Carbon Removals

by Rick Berg, Radhika Moolgavkar, Nori, March 26, 2024

“The durability of sequestered carbon, and credits designed to represent it, has gotten a lot of focus in discussions around the voluntary carbon dioxide removal (CDR) markets and emerging mandatory carbon markets. This attention is well-deserved. Durability characteristics play a key role in the functioning of the markets, including how the carbon removal credits are used, the development of carbon insurance, the management of carbon credit portfolio risks, and the creation of credit ratings. “

LINK

#
Peer-reviewed Publications

Nature – Zhao et al. (2024): Trade-offs in land-based carbon removal measures under 1.5°C and 2°C futures

Xin Zhao, Bryan K. Mignone, Marshall A. Wise, Haewon C. McJeon IN: Nature Communications, 15, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46575-3

Land-based carbon removals, specifically afforestation/reforestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), vary widely in 1.5°C and 2°C scenarios generated by integrated assessment models. Because underlying drivers are difficult to assess, the authors use a well-known integrated assessment model, GCAM, to demonstrate that land-based carbon removals are sensitive to the strength and scope of land-based mitigation policies. 

LINK

#
Books

Chapter: Lukas Schuett (2024): Permanence and Liability: Legal Considerations on the Integration of Carbon Dioxide Removal into the EU Emissions Trading System

Lukas Schuett IN: Transnational Environmental Law, https://doi.org/10.1017/S2047102524000013

This article examines how carbon dioxide (CO2) removal credits can be integrated into the European Union (EU) Emissions Trading System (ETS), focusing on questions of permanence and climate liability. It identifies challenges within the integration process and analyzes approaches from practice and literature to cultivate learning. These approaches apply different strategies to address the issue of permanence, including temporary credit issuance, granting credits once a certain number of carbon tonne-years have been accumulated, or issuing credits at the beginning of the project period and relying on liability instead. Drawing from the findings of this research, the article presents legal considerations that may inform a proposal for an EU legislative act on the integration of carbon removal credits into the EU ETS.

LINK

#
Peer-reviewed Publications

Nyawira et al. (2024): Pantropical CO2 emissions and removals for the AFOLU sector in the period 1990–2018

Sylvia S. Nyawira, Martin Herold, Kalkidan Ayele Mulatu, Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta, Richard A. Houghton, Giacomo Grassi, Julia Pongratz, Thomas Gasser, Louis Verchot IN: Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-023-10096-z

Here, the authors present a comparative analysis of the agriculture forestry and other land use (AFOLU) emission estimates from different datasets, including National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (NGHGIs), FAOSTAT, the BLUE, OSCAR, and Houghton (here after updated H&N2017) bookkeeping models; Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR); and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They disaggregate the fluxes for the forestry and other land use (FOLU) sector into forest land, deforestation, and other land uses (including non-forest land uses), while agricultural emissions are disaggregated according to the sources (i.e., livestock, croplands, rice cultivation, and agricultural fires). Considering different time periods (1990–1999, 2000–2010, and 2011–2018), they analyse the trend of the fluxes with a key focus on the tropical regions (i.e., Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia). 

LINK

#
Peer-reviewed Publications

Höning et al. (2024): Reversibility of Greenland ice sheet mass loss under artificial carbon dioxide removal scenarios

Dennis Höning, Matteo Willeit, Andrey Ganopolski IN: Environmental Research Letters, 19, 2, DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ad2129

With ongoing anthropogenic CO2 emissions, the Greenland ice sheet (GIS) approaches critical thresholds of inevitable, long-term mass loss. Future technologies might be able to efficiently remove CO2 from the atmosphere and thereby cool down our planet. The authors explore whether and to what extent a realization of this concept could lead to a regrowth of the GIS once it has partly melted. Using the fully coupled Earth system model of intermediate complexity CLIMBER-X, emission pulses between 0 and 4000 GtC are released into the atmosphere, and after 1 kyr, 2 kyr, and 5 kyr, the atmospheric CO2 concentration is reduced back to its pre-industrial value.

LINK

#
Peer-reviewed Publications

Low et al. (2024): An earth system governance research agenda for carbon removal

Sean Low, Miranda Boettcher, Shinichiro Asayama, Chad Baum, Amanda Borth, Calum Brown, Forrest Clingerman, Peter Dauvergne, Kari De Pryck, Aarti Gupta, Matthias Honegger, Dominic Lenzi, Renate Reitsma, Felix Schenuit, Celina Scott-Buechler, Jose Maria Valenzuela IN: Earth System Governance 19, 100204, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2024.100204

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) – the creation, enhancement, and upscaling of carbon sinks – has become a pillar of national and corporate commitments towards Net Zero emissions, as well as pathways towards realizing the Paris Agreement’s ambitious temperature targets. In this perspective, the authors explore CDR as an emerging issue of Earth System Governance (ESG). 

LINK

#
Reports

Working Paper: Prospects and challenges for implementing land-based climate change mitigation in support of carbon dioxide removal in China

Mathieu Mal, Huiling Zhu, Francis X. Johnson, February 07, 2024

In this working paper, the authors present an overview of China’s greenhouse gas emissions and its land-based carbon stocks and flows, with a spotlight on potential for land-based mitigation technologies and practices (LMTs) for carbon dioxide removal, based on the published literature. They also provide an analysis of LMT-related policies and perspectives on LMT development and future trends from experts, with discussion and conclusions based on the policy analysis and experts’ insights.

LINK

#