Replies to post #15645 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[hptaxis]

What if negative emission technologies fail at scale?

Policy relevance

Since the Paris meeting, there is increased awareness that most policy ‘solutions’ commensurate with 2°C include widespread deployment of negative emissions technologies (NETs).

Yet much less is understood about that option’s feasibility, compared with near-term efforts to curb energy demand. Moreover, the many different ways in which key information is synthesized for policy makers, clouds the ability of policy makers to make informed decisions.

This article presents an alternative approach to consider what the Paris Agreement implies, if NETs are unable to deliver more carbon sinks than sources. It illustrates the scale of the climate challenge for policy makers, particularly if the Agreement’s aim to address ‘equity’ is accounted for.

Here it is argued that much more attention needs to be paid to what CO2 reductions can be achieved in the short-term, rather than taking a risk that could render the Paris Agreement’s policy goals unachievable.

Larkin A, Kuriakose J, Sharmina M, Anderson K. What if negative emission technologies fail at scale? Implications of the Paris Agreement for big emitting nations. Climate Policy. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14693062.2017.1346498

A cumulative emissions approach is increasingly used to inform mitigation policy. However, there are different interpretations of what ‘2°C’ implies. Here it is argued that cost-optimization models, commonly used to inform policy, typically underplay the urgency of 2°C mitigation. The alignment within many scenarios of optimistic assumptions on negative emissions technologies (NETs), with implausibly early peak emission dates and incremental short-term mitigation, delivers outcomes commensurate with 2°C commitments.

In contrast, considering equity and socio-technical barriers to change, suggests a more challenging short-term agenda. To understand these different interpretations, short-term CO2 trends of the largest CO2 emitters, are assessed in relation to a constrained CO2 budget, coupled with a ‘what if’ assumption that negative emissions technologies fail at scale. The outcomes raise profound questions around high-level framings of mitigation policy.

The article concludes that applying even weak equity criteria, challenges the feasibility of maintaining a 50% chance of avoiding 2°C without urgent mitigation efforts in the short-term. This highlights a need for greater engagement with: (1) the equity dimension of the Paris Agreement, (2) the sensitivity of constrained carbon budgets to short-term trends and (3) the climate risks for society posed by an almost ubiquitous inclusion of NETs within 2°C scenarios.

[hptaxis]

What they don’t tell you about climate change

The Economist has an editorial on negative emissions technologies, pointing out that "the Paris agreement assumes, in effect, that the world will find ways to suck CO2 out of the air", yet there is "barely any public discussion of how to bring about the extra 'negative emissions' needed." "Unless that changes, the promise of limiting the harm of climate change is almost certain to be broken," the article argues. https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21731397-stopping-flow-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-not-enough-it-has-be-sucked-out

"The total amount of CO2 to be soaked up by 2100 could be a staggering 810bn tonnes, as much as the world’s economy produces in 20 years at today’s rate." "Putting in place carbon-removal schemes of this magnitude would be an epic endeavour even if tried-and-tested techniques existed," it says. "They do not."

The editorial sits alongside a briefing article that delves into the details of negative emissions and the technologies that exist today. https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21731386-cutting-emissions-will-not-be-enough-keep-global-warming-check-greenhouse-gases-must-be

[OakesCS]

Julio Friedman and Klaus Lackner r experts at 1 thing - transferring tax payer dollars to their pockets. The little project cited in the article exemplifies is typical of their work

“Every day at the plant, roughly a ton of CO2 that had previously floated over Mt. Garibaldi or the Chief is converted into calcium carbonate. The pellets are subsequently heated, and the gas is forced off, to be stored in cannisters.”

This process adds an extra set of steps to what cement factories do every day and cement manufacturers r one of Lackner and Friedman’s targets as contributors to climate change. Adding extra steps generally doesn’t improve efficiency. There r good reasons why Lackner’s little projects fail (and I haven’t known any that haven’t)