January 31, 2018

expert reaction to new report on Negative Emission Technologies

The European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) has published a new report that examines the future of negative emission technologies and whether they can really help us tackle climate change.

A briefing accompanied this roundup.

Prof. Andrew Watson FRS, Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Exeter, said:

“Their main conclusion is that while some of the technologies for removing CO2 from the atmosphere may have a role to play in reducing climate change, all have drawbacks that mean it will be difficult to use them at the very large scale that would be necessary to make a real difference. So our main focus and best hope for avoiding the worst effects of climate change still needs to be reducing our emissions.”

Prof. Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science at the University of Oxford, said:

“The report re-emphasises, with admirable thoroughness, what everyone knows: we won’t stop the world warming until we work out a way of disposing of carbon dioxide without dumping it in the atmosphere. The only alternative, banning the citizens of India of the 2080s from touching their coal reserves, is neither just nor practicable. Yet the press release picks up only on the “limited potential” of CO2 disposal, giving everyone an excuse to continue cling to the comfort-blanket of more conventional mitigation options. The report also ignores recent innovative policy ideas that might make large-scale CO2 disposal a reality. There is only one institution in the world with the capital, expertise and resources to dispose of CO2 on the necessary scale, and that is the fossil fuel industry. We have to work out how to give it the incentive to do so.”

Dr Phil Renforth, Lecturer in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Cardiff University, said:

“Negative emission technologies only make sense in a world in which emissions are nose diving towards zero, so the EASAC’s call for a commitment to strong and rapid mitigation is reasonable. However, waiting until emissions reach zero before researching negative emissions is a dangerous gamble, one that may commit us to excess atmospheric CO₂ without scalable methods to remove it.”

Dr Phil Williamson, Associate Fellow at the University of East Anglia, said:

“The EASAC report is scientifically sound and politically important.  Its main message is clear enough: don’t put off the clean-up for fifty years, as is currently the case in most emission-scenarios that avoid climate chaos.  Yet the report’s conclusions are also more nuanced, recognising that the complete cessation of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities is impossible, since many sources and gases are involved – not just CO2 from fossil fuels.  So some removal will be required.  The key issues are now of scale: the scaling-down of the unrealistic use of negative emissions in climate models, and the scaling-up of ambition to achieve net zero emissions, as rapidly as possible.”

* ‘Negative emission technologies: What role in meeting Paris Agreement targets?’ will be published by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) on Wednesday 31 January. 

Declared interests

None received.