Decarbonization hype is becoming a dangerous distraction

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Some people believe that the government should also set a separate target to ensure that carbon removal (sometimes called “negative emissions”) does not count towards the reduction target.

“Failure to make this distinction has hindered climate policy, exaggerated the expected future contribution of negative emissions in the climate model, and also blurred the scope and speed of investment required to achieve negative emissions,” McLaren and others stated Climate Frontier In 2019.

Sweden Made a version, Set the goal of reducing emissions by at least 85% from 1990 levels by 2045, and rely to a large extent on carbon removal to bring the remaining emissions to zero.The European Union’s proposed European Climate Law, Limiting the effect of carbon removal to 225 million tons, or slightly higher than 2 percentage points of the overall target: reducing emissions by 55% by 2030.

“It has now been determined that most of the EU’s mitigation efforts need to be accomplished by reducing emissions, and carbon removal can help to go further,” wrote Frances Wang and Mark Preston Aragonès of the Climate Engineering Foundation.

Early and high risk

Sally Benson, a professor of energy resources engineering at Stanford University, said that she believes that the money flowing into carbon removal startups today is very similar to the situation of clean technology in the 2000s, when investment poured into very early technology and high risks.

Many investments have not paid off because companies that develop advanced biofuels and alternative solar materials have failed in the market.

“I am indeed a little worried, this is where our carbon removal technology lies,” she said in an email. “Some of the most mature companies that are most likely to succeed and have a significant impact, such as BECCS [bioenergy with carbon capture and storage]Compared with less mature technologies such as direct air capture and mineralization, it has received much less attention. “

But she emphasized that these are likely to be key technologies in the future, “We must start somewhere.”

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