Cop26 must urgently get specific on carbon removal in net-zero pathways
(Climate Home News, 4 Oct 2021) The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasises that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques will play a critical role in stabilising global temperatures.
Yet many of CDR’s limitations — be that technical, financial, or political — are overlooked in the report, which focuses on the physical science of climate change.
In its key scenarios, the report did not make clear exactly how much future CDR will be required. This will be the job of the IPCC Working Group III report currently due in March 2022 – too late for the Cop26 negotiations.
In scenarios where we limit warming to 1.5-2 degrees, large net removals are shown after 2050. But the actual levels of residual emissions and the CDR offsetting them are largely invisible to the reader.
This invisibility matters for two main reasons.
First, the lack of clarity conceals the huge technical and financial challenges that would be involved in delivering high levels of removals.
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