COP27: creating new forms of carbon dioxide removals proving to be a challenge

Events outside the formal and informal negotiations under the UNFCCC process are just as critical to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. In this latest update, we look at one issue being discussed at a number of side events convened at COP27: carbon dioxide removals (CDRs). This is certainly not the dominant topic being discussed at these side events (which probably goes to green hydrogen opportunities), but serves as an appetiser.

Time to talk about carbon dioxide removals

Negotiations in relation to the market mechanisms under Article 6 are currently debating the crediting of “removal“ activities: CDR activities which reduce emissions, usually generated at source, or which can remove emissions already in the atmosphere. So far emphasis has been on nature-based removals but other engineered solutions exist, the best examples being carbon capture and storage, and direct air capture technologies.

Achieving the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit the average increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees (or the more likely <2 degrees based on current forecasts), will be challenging without exploiting all available solutions – so much was recognised in the IPCC April 2022 report with CDR featuring more prominently than in any previous report. The report stated:

“The deployment of carbon dioxide removals to counterbalance hard-to-abate residual emissions is unavoidable if net zero…emissions are to be achieved.”

The IPCC report outlines the scale of the challenge, saying that limiting warming to 1.5C translates into around 6 GtCO₂ of CDR per year by 2050.

This however does not account for the amount of negative emissions needed to restore the climate. Even if the 1.5 degrees goal is achieved, the world will continue to experience significant climate change impacts, so solutions are required well beyond 2050 to effectively reduce the level of GHGs already in the atmosphere.

Traditional sources of negative emissions such as land-based sequestration projects, while remaining important, will not deliver the amount required to meet the challenges of either net-zero or longer term GHG reductions, or in the timeframe required. New sources of negative emissions must be identified and deployed at scale – and quickly.

This presents a number of challenges, including:

• how can markets be used to encourage investment in CDR activities – as the voluntary market will not be able to drive the scale of investment needed, we must find a way to leverage compliance markets to do this and determine liability for removal activities;
• what accounting, legal and governance frameworks are needed to support engineered CDR activities, including those relating to monitoring, verification and reporting;
• who should be responsible for engineered CDR activities both in implementation and long-term safeguards (ie. permanence of storage);
• given that CDR represents a uniquely global opportunity (in that it does not matter where it occurs in the world), should countries have targets to achieve removals;
• what infrastructure is required (or can be repurposed) to support engineered CDR and how is this to be financed; and
• how can the challenge of public acceptability of CDR activities be addressed, particularly the perception that CCS does not achieve overall emissions reduction?

Work is currently being done in the EU to develop a Carbon Removal Certification Framework to aid in the development of the required governance and reporting structures, and the first mega-tonne scale direct air capture plant is being built in Texas by Occidental subsidiary 1point5. While much more will be required to be done to prove the capacity of such projects to deliver emissions removal at scale, getting started doesn’t hurt.