Tag: governance

Peer-reviewed Publications

Luczak (2026): Concerns and Questions About Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies

Joshua Luczak, IN: Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70063

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies are increasingly positioned as essential tools for meeting global climate targets, yet their development and potential deployment raise a complex set of technical, moral, social, and political concerns and questions. These issues are often discussed in isolation, with technical and scientific debates proceeding independently of moral and sociopolitical scrutiny, and vice versa. This article offers an integrated review of CDR that brings these distinct concerns and questions together in one place. It notes scientific and technical challenges alongside moral, social, and political ones. By placing these issues together, the article provides a more complete picture for evaluating CDR research, development, and deployment.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Seck & Engler (2026): A human rights-based approach to marine carbon dioxide removal governance – Preprint

Sara L. Seck, Cecilia Engler, IN: SSRN, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6506839

Since the 2015 adoption of the Paris Agreement, research into marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR), particularly technological mCDR, has received increased attention. Several research institutions and start-up companies are conducting field research, including tapping into the voluntary carbon markets. This research and potential large-scale development is taking place in the context of a fragmented international legal landscape that does not provide adequate global standards for states and businesses. Human rights law, particularly the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, is becoming an increasingly important framework for ocean governance, including the assessment of marine climate interventions. This article summarises the content of a human rights-based approach to mCDR, clarifying what it would mean for governments, businesses, and mCDR researchers to take human rights seriously so that neither present nor future generations bear a disproportionate burden. To this end, the article draws on the advisory opinions of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Court of Justice, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, addressing State obligations in the context of the climate emergency. It also draws on selected human rights law mechanisms, with particular focus on the UNGA resolution recognizing the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, 2018 Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment and the 2011 United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Redgwell (2025): Technological Change and the Law of the Sea: The Challenge of Marine Geoengineering

Redgwell, C, IN: Oxford Research Archive (ORA), https://doi.org/10.1017/s0020589325101127

A significant impetus for the negotiation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was the impact of new technological and scientific developments on the law of the sea. Such developments have continued apace, raising the question of how UNCLOS continues to respond to new uses of, and threats to, the oceans. This article focuses on marine geoengineering as an emerging technological response to the climate emergency and its regulation by the specialised global dumping regime of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter and its Protocol within the general normative framework provided by UNCLOS.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Waller et al. (2025): Responsible research and innovation of carbon removal in the UK: strategies for field trials

Laurie Waller, Emily Cox, Amy Binner, Tatiana Cantillo Garcia, Rosie Everett, Karen Henwood, Julie Ingram, Carol Morris, Kate O’Sullivan, Nick Pidgeon, Catherine Price, Mark Reed, Alessandro Silvestri and Rob Bellamy, IN: Frontiers in Climate, https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2025.1658453

Demonstrating methods for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is now a focus of research and development programmes designed to support decision making about future technology deployment. In this perspective piece, the authors outline some of the approaches to responsible research and innovation (RRI) being put to work in a UK-based programme organising field trials of various carbon removal methods. Unlike the disruptive technologies that predominate in RRI scholarship, many land-based methods for carbon removal have already been deployed, in some cases over many decades, with governance closely linked with longstanding fields of research and practice.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Hope & Vaughan (2025): Insights lost at points of vulnerability in UK policy evidence gathering on Carbon Dioxide Removal

Aimie L. B. Hope and Naomi Vaughan, IN: CDRxiv Preprint, https://doi.org/10.70212/cdrxiv.2025412.v1

The methods, quantity, and timing of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is impacted by, and has implications for, decarbonising energy, land use change, agriculture, the earth system response, and global society. Uncertainties in each plus the rapid development of CDR methods and policy, make decision-making challenging. Insights from the social sciences and humanities are underrepresented in CDR decision-making. Qualitative evidence and theoretical insights are challenging to synthesise with quantitative policy outputs and decision tools. Real-world complexities may therefore be missed from feasibility assessments and decision-making around CDR, with consequent risks to delivery. The authors focus on expert consultation procedures to identify points where real-world insights may be lost. The focus is non-statutory consultations with significant two-way dialogue and multiple stakeholders. Non-statutory processes are less scrutinised and more fluid, with greater scope for the quality of evidence to be impacted by institutional and human biases. Twenty-six semi-structured online interviews were conducted with individuals from NGOs, policy, industry, and academia who work on CDR and related areas. Interviews capture both inside (i.e., policymaker) and outside (i.e., stakeholder) perspectives on evidence gathering procedures.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Roeschel (2025): Towards system-aware governance of marine carbon dioxide removal: a review of interdependent challenges

Lina Roeschel, IN: Environmental Research Letters, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ae0493

Marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) is increasingly discussed as a potential climate response, yet its governance remains underdeveloped. This study conducts a structured literature review, following the PRISMA framework, to identify and analyse governance challenges associated with mCDR within the broader context of multilateral ocean governance. Using the Socio-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS) framework, challenges were systematically coded to capture interdependencies across social, ecological, and technological domains.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Fritz et al. (2025): Between inflated expectations and inherent distrust: How publics see the role of experts in governing climate intervention technologies

Livia Fritz, Lucilla Losi, Chad M. Baum, Sean Low, Benjamin K. Sovacool IN: Environmental Science and Policy, 164, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104005

Addressing questions around more effective governance of novel technologies for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and proposals around solar radiation modification necessitates reflections on how different kinds of expertise, normative judgments and democratic decision-making (should) interact. Based on a survey (N = 22,222) and 44 focus groups (N = 323) in 22 countries, the authors show (i) who publics see as an expert in the field of climate intervention technologies, (ii) what roles they envision for experts in governing climate intervention technologies and (iii) how trust and distrust in scientists unfolds in the context of these novel, partly controversial, technologies.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Nature – Malakar et al. (2025): Navigating stakeholder heterogeneity in carbon dioxide removal governance

Yuwan Malakar, Kerryn Brent, Audrey Bester, John Gardner, Will Howard, Andrew Lenton IN: Nature Reviews Clean Technology, 1, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44359-024-00006-0

Responsible carbon dioxide removal (CDR) governance will require engagement with numerous stakeholders who have differing agendas, roles and influence in the CDR landscape. However, there is little guidance on how to understand and appropriately engage with this heterogeneous set of stakeholders. In this Perspective, the authors discuss how to navigate stakeholder heterogeneity and engagement in CDR, using a framework based on multi-level perspective and stakeholder theory.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Boettcher & Brent (2024): The potential of the BBNJ clearing house mechanism to enhance knowledge pluralism in marine carbon dioxide removal assessment

Miranda, Boettcher, Kerryn Brent IN: Frontiers in Climate, 6, doi: 10.3389/fclim.2024.1497476

The open ocean, which already absorbs a substantial portion of anthropogenic carbon dioxide, is increasingly seen as a promising site for various types of marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). All of these approaches are in the preliminary stages of development, and many questions remain with regard to their assessment and governance. This paper discusses the potential role of the newly established Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) in assessing and governing mCDR.

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Science-Policy Documents

Grubert & Talati (2023): The distortionary effects of unconstrained for-profit carbon dioxide removal and the need for early governance intervention

Emily Grubert, Shuchi Talati IN: Carbon Management, https://doi.org/10.1080/17583004.2023.2292111

Governance and institutions, especially related to how CDR is allocated and paid for, will fundamentally shape CDR efforts, including by structurally incentivizing particular approaches and monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) objectives. The authors argue that the emerging tendency toward market-based, unconstrained, and for-profit CDR presents fundamental and predictable risks for climate and justice goals. Such a model incentivizes growth in profitable compensatory removal applications, effectively allocating limited resources based on ability to pay rather than public good, while also increasing the amount of CDR required to meet global climate targets. They describe the need, development context, function, and resource limitations of CDR, then characterize the major challenges with the emerging unconstrained, for-profit governance model.

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