New technologies and changes in consumer habits could limit the use of controversial carbon capture to fight climate change, new investigation sample.
Efforts to capture carbon from polluting sources or filter CO2 from the air have gained momentum as a way for companies to meet their climate goals. But those strategies have not yet been tested on a large scale and could have other unintended consequences. Some environmental advocates also worry that focusing on cleaning up pollution after the fact could deter companies from transitioning to renewable energy to prevent emissions in the first place.
To stop climate change and meet the goals of the Paris agreement, planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions must reach net zero around 2050. There is no way to do it without turning to cleaner energy. However, certain industries are considered difficult to decarbonize, meaning they cannot turn to renewable electricity as easily as other sectors to reduce carbon pollution. That includes agriculture, international shipping by ship and plane, and heavy industry such as steel and cement manufacturing.
There are ways to prevent further pollution, whether by relying on emerging technological solutions or encouraging more sustainable consumption habits.
That's where carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is supposed to come in as a way to reduce leftover pollution from hard-to-decarbonize sectors. However, an article published last week urges the industry and policymakers to be more ambitious. There are ways to prevent further pollution, whether by relying on emerging technological solutions or encouraging more sustainable consumption habits.
“You can't take measures that are sustainable, right? That's the question,” says Wil Burns, co-director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Elimination at American University, who was not involved in the new research.
The authors of an article published in the magazine. Nature Climate Change Last week he examined previous research to identify ways each of those hard-to-cut sectors could reduce their pollution. Lighter, more efficient planes would reduce pollution from international travel, as would efforts to develop cleaner-burning fuels. Greater teleworking and the use of high-speed trains instead of short-haul flights would also reduce carbon pollution. When it comes to making steel, electric arc furnaces can replace traditional blast furnaces. They found that one of the most important ways people could make an impact would be to reduce the amount of meat and dairy they consume.
The researchers analyzed scenarios in which people implement such strategies to reduce emissions from hard-to-decarbonize industries and compared the results to a baseline scenario for climate action without such measures. That showed them how much they could reduce their use of one of the most controversial carbon removal strategies, called bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).
The baseline scenario, which is based on a model commonly used to inform climate action, prioritizes cost savings. “In a way, it finds the cheapest options to reduce emissions,” says Oreane Edelenbosch, lead author of the research and assistant professor at Utrecht University. “BECCS is an attractive option from a cost perspective.”
BECCS involves capturing and storing carbon dioxide from wood-burning power plants. The power plant burns fuel from trees that naturally absorb and store CO2. Burning those trees releases that CO2, but you can replant trees to try to capture those emissions again. Ideally, this becomes a carbon neutral process for generating energy. However, the goal of BECCS is negative emissions, which is achieved by installing devices that capture pollution from the plant. That carbon negativity is intended to negate the climate impact of hard-to-reduce emissions from heavy industry, transportation and agriculture.
BECCS not yet widely implementedalthough that could change with the interest of companies like Microsoft, which recently agreed to a deal with energy company Stockholm Exergi to purchase 3.33 million metric tons of carbon removal from BECCS.
But BECCS can take a toll in different ways. There are additional emissions from clearing forests and transporting wood to burn as fuel. Taking this into account, some studies have found that BECCS It is not necessarily carbon negative and actually can worsen greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere. Burns points out that there are human rights concerns with BECCSAlso, since it uses a lot of land and water and can increase food prices for communities already facing food insecurity.
The authors of the new paper find that implementing technological solutions for hard-to-decarbonize sectors could dramatically reduce annual BECCS use by 2060. The change in consumer behavior was especially powerful, particularly the shift to “healthy” diets that reduce consumption of meat and agricultural products. emissions. Considering just those types of lifestyle changes, BECCS alone could be used to extract up to 2.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide per year, compared to a peak of 10.3 gigatonnes per year in a baseline scenario.
Of course, it's easier to imagine this on paper than it is to implement all of these strategies in the real world. “(In this study) we assume that they are implemented and adopted almost as in a perfect world. We do not take into account political opinions or certain personal preferences,” says Edelenbosch. “It really shows more, in a way, what if?”
