Exploring Narratives on Negative Emissions Technologies in the Post-Paris Era

Abstract

The 2015 Paris Agreement specified that the goal of international climate policy is to strengthen the global response to climate change by restricting the average global warming this century to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. In this context, “Negative Emissions Technologies” (NETs)—technologies that remove additional greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the atmosphere—are receiving greater political attention. They are introduced as a backstop method for achieving temperature targets. A focal point in the discussions on NETs are the emission and mitigation pathways assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Drawing on perspectives from Science & Technology Studies (STS) and discourse analysis, the paper explores the emergence of narratives about NETs and reconstructs how the treatment of NETs within IPCC assessments became politicized terrain of configuration for essentially conflicting interests concerning long-term developments in the post-Paris regime. NETs are—critics claim—not the silver bullet solution to finally fix the climate, they are a Trojan horse; serving to delay decarbonization efforts by offering apparent climate solutions that allow GHGs emissions to continue and foster misplaced hope in future GHG removal technologies. In order to explore the emerging controversies, we conduct a literature review to identify NETs narratives in the scientific literature. Based on this, we reevaluate expert interviews to reconstruct narratives emerging from German environmental non-governmental organizations (eNGOs). We find a spectrum of narratives on NETs in the literature review and the eNGO interviews. The most prominent stories within this spectrum frame NETs either as a moral hazard or as a matter of necessity to achieve temperature targets.

The ABC of Governance Principles for Carbon Dioxide Removal Policy

“…In these developments CDR is ascribed a particular role -most frequently to offset residual, unavoidable emissions to reach net-zero. Congruently, a growing consensus narrative describes CDR as a necessity to fulfill ambitious climate targets (Otto et al, 2021). This implies another governance principle (complementing (a) and (c)): (t) anticipate the longer-term CDR needs toward a stated net-zero or net-negative emissions target.…”

“…Potential Governance Principle for Avoidance of Over-Promise and Under-Delivery Some see CDR as an imaginary with little foundation in political and social realities (Low and Boettcher, 2020), but capturing public attention (Otto et al, 2021). Many fear a false sense of certainty regarding the feasibility and desirability of CDR (Low and Honegger, 2020).…”

Is carbon removal delaying emission reductions?

“…The argument may also work if carbon removal does deliver as promised, because of the various burdens and foregone benefits associated with choosing CDR over emissions reductions, e.g. continued air pollution associated with fossil fuel use (McLaren, 2016a) or the enormous land and resource needs associated with various CDR methods (Boysen et al, 2017; Dooley & Kartha, 2018; Otto et al, 2021; Realmonte et al, 2019; Smith et al, 2016).…”

“…There is considerable disagreement on how serious a risk moral hazard or mitigation deterrence (henceforth “MH/MD”) actually is. Some maintain that CDR is already distracting from emission reductions (Anderson & Peters, 2016; Carton, 2019; McLaren & Markusson, 2020), or point to how it might do so (McLaren, 2020; Minx et al, 2018; Otto et al, 2021). Others find no evidence of moral hazard (Merk, Pönitzsch, & Rehdanz, 2019), suggest that the real‐world risk might be overstated (Bellamy et al, 2021; Lackner, 2016), or argue that suggestions of a potential trade‐off between CDR and emission reductions are ultimately counterproductive (Jebari et al, 2021).…”

Carbon dioxide removal to combat climate change? An expert survey on perception and support

“…BECCS is expected to remove 291 GtCO2 and DACCS 19 GtCO 2 between 2020 and 2100 (IPCC 2022). Because a goal has been set to achieve net zero emissions, CDR-CCS is considered to be a Net Emission Technology (NET) (Minx et al 2017, Rickels et al 2019, Otto et al 2021.…”