Large‐Scale Carbon Dioxide Removal to Meet the 1.5°C Limit: Key Governance Gaps, Challenges and Priority Responses

Abstract

Parties to the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement have agreed to pursue efforts to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C. To meet this goal, the international community will have to aggressively reduce emissions and also remove CO2 from the atmosphere on an unprecedented scale, through an array of biological and technical Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) options. This paper considers governance challenges that arise from the need to rely on CDR to meet the Paris Agreement’s long‐term temperature goal. It looks at how heavy this reliance may have to be, over what timeframe, involving what options and, crucially, how best to ensure that CDR does not, while trying to address one problem, create many other challenges for sustainable development. After identifying the potential scale and pace of CO2 removal needed to meet the 1.5°C goal, we identify key governance gaps and challenges that arise from large‐scale CDR implementation and propose a series of policy responses to be addressed by policy makers as a matter of priority, to enable CDR to contribute to 1.5°C‐consistent pathways at the scale and pace required.

18 Politically relevant solar geoengineering scenarios

“…CDR is now an essential element in major international agreements and considered as mitigation by IPCC; for example, all IPCC SR1.5°C pathways consistent with the Paris Agreement anticipate large-scale CDR deployment in the latter half of the 21st century to reach net-zero emissions (Lewis, 2015;Fuss et al, 2018;Nemet et al, 2018;IPCC, 2018). Furthermore, many Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) towards mid-century net-zero targets rely heavily on CDR (Mace et al, 2021).…”

CO2 removal and 1.5 °C: what, when, where, and how?

“…For example, at the EU-scale, Rickels et al 58 considered the integration of BECCS into the EU emissions trading system (ETS) and its potential implications for the EU ETS. It is still unclear, however, how CDR options might be integrated within such international/inter-regional market-based approaches, notably do to many challenges around the permanence, additivity, measurability, and verifiability of their CDR potentials 59,60 .…”

“…It is still unclear, however, how CDR options might be integrated within such international/inter-regional market-based approaches, notably do to many challenges around the permanence, additivity, measurability, and verifiability of their CDR potentials. 59,60…”

The Low‐carbon Equity Market: A New Alternative for Investment Diversification?

“…Concerns about global warming and climate change, the environment, the scarcity of water, issues related to human rights and poverty, and financial crises among other factors, have helped to validate the theme of sustainability among stakeholders because, in strategic terms, it can also bring added value to the business itself (Elijido‐Ten & Clarkson, 2019; KPMG, 2011; Porter & Kramer, 2006; Vives & Wadhwa, 2012). This greater awareness also extends to the financial sector, which – like investors – includes carbon‐risk exposure in its decision making (Herbohn et al 2019; Mace et al 2021).…”

“…This change is embodied in several research works (e.g., Agle, 2008;Wood, 2008) that question Friedman's (1970) proposal, according to which the mission of a company is to maximize shareholder value.Concerns about global warming and climate change, the environment, the scarcity of water, issues related to human rights and poverty, and financial crises among other factors, have helped to validate the theme of sustainability among stakeholders because, in strategic terms, it can also bring added value to the business itself (Elijido-Ten & Clarkson, 2019;KPMG, 2011;Porter & Kramer, 2006;Vives & Wadhwa, 2012). This greater awareness also extends to the financial sector, which -like investors -includes carbon-risk exposure in its decision making (Herbohn et al 2019;Mace et al 2021).Sustainable investment, also called socially responsible investment or ethical investment, is based on the idea of the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit), according to which a company's results should not be measured exclusively by the yardstick of conventional financial criteria, but should also consider non-financial criteria (Brzeszczynski & McIntosh, 2014;Renneboog et al 2008); namely social (labour and human rights, health and safety, and community relations, among others), governance (good governance, ethical issues, accountability, bribes and corruption, among others), and environmental (biodiversity, water management, pollution, and climate change, among others) criteria. With regard to environmental objectives,…”