We will have to remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere to limit the impacts of climate change, because drastically reducing global CO2 emissions will no longer be enough. This is the alert of an international team of scientists in a new report.
“To limit warming to 2°C or less, we must accelerate emissions reductionssays Steve Smith, a carbon removal expert at the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. “However, we also need to increase carbon removal by restoring and improving ecosystems and rapidly expanding new CDR (carbon dioxide removal) methods.”.
Most current carbon removal is based on conventional removal methods such as tree planting and soil management. While this will need to accelerate around the world, we will also need other techniques to remove even more CO2 from the atmosphere, according to the report’s authors.
“Many new methods with potential are emerging. Rather than focusing on one or two options, we should encourage a portfolio to quickly reach net zero without relying too heavily on a single method.”explains Smith.
New methods to remove excess CO2
The adoption and scaling up of new methods will be key to enabling the 120+ governments with net zero emissions targets to reach those targets by mid-century. However, few of these governments currently have plans to increase CDR capacity, the scientists note.
“Virtually every path to limiting temperature rise requires new CDR technologies, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), biochar, enhanced rock weathering, and direct air capture with carbon capture and storage (DACCS).”, they explain in a statement on their findings.
“FORCurrently, they represent only a small fraction of current CDRs: around 0.1%. But if the CDR gap is closed, there needs to be rapid growth in these new CDR technologies, by a factor of 1300 on average by 2050.”, they add.
Combine with drastic reductions
Only when accelerated innovation in CDR technologies is combined with dramatic reductions in emissions will we stand a chance of mitigating the worst effects of climate change while keeping warming at manageable levels, experts argue.
“Innovation at CDR has expanded dramatically over the past two years,” says Gregory Nemet, professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Given the orders of magnitude the CDR industry needs to grow by mid-century to limit warming, there is an urgent need for comprehensive policy support to spur growth.”