The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement
will not be met without the additional and large-scale removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere.
This can lower net emissions today, will compensate for humanity’s remaining emissions to reach net zero, and
may eventually help bring down absolute levels of CO2 concentrations to return global warming to 1.5°C after
an expected emissions overshoot. A global approach to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is needed to succeed in
this mission.
Establishing a global approach to CDR is a daunting task. Similar to other pillars of climate action – decarbonization and
adaptation – it involves bringing together a complex set of scientific and social factors under an integrated framework for
action. Managing such complexity requires a high degree of policy resilience, with standards and definitions of carbon
removal processes able to resist challenges to its critical premises and remain effective and relevant over time. This global
approach must also consider the variety of CDR methods and how they differ in terms of maturity, potentials, costs, risks,
co-benefits, as well as the trade-offs between climate change effectiveness and environmental or social side impacts.
The contributors* to this discussion paper have identified six imperatives, accompanied by recommendations, for scaling
high-quality CDR-systems. They pertain to all removal methods, irrespective of the removal process (land-based biological;
ocean-based biological; geochemical; chemical) or the duration of storage (decades to centuries; centuries to millennia;
ten thousand years or longer).
Authors
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- Switzerland