Climate policies built around netzero have become a dangerous trap. This is about the hardest article I have written. Not because it’s technical, but because of the emotions & worry of being misunderstood.
about why we must talk about netzero.
https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368
Before that a TLDR: Netzero offers promise of technological salvation that promotes a burn now pay later approach. This risks disaster while accelerating destruction of biodiversity today.
Still before that: I co-authored this article with Robert Watson (former chair of
@IPCC_CH and
@IPBES) and Wolfgang Knorr
@w_knorr (former group leader
@MPI_BGC). So both vastly experienced. I am not a "senior/leading climate scientist"
b Many thanks to
@josephineleth &
@ConversationUK for commissioning this longread and
@AppleNewsUK for joint publication.
OK, so what is netzero? We've all heard the term now - the point where our GHG emissions are balanced by natural and artificial sinks. We must get to netzero as fast as possible to avoid dangerous climate change. All very sensible stuff.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/what-is-net-zero
The problems begin when climate policy scenarios begin to include speculative Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR). This started in early-mid 1990s. Postulating a future with more trees was used to justify burning more coal.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-integrated-assessment-models-are-used-to-study-climate-change
A few years later, Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) was proposed as enabling climate-friendly coal as the carbon from power stations could be scrubbed out and stored underground. But even though this tech didn't exist, it began to be included in climate policy scenarios.
btw CCS for clean coal still does not exist. There has been a single demonstrator facility at Boundary Dam coal station in Canada, but most of the carbon captured is used for Enhanced Oil Recovery (and so further pump out hydrocarbons from the ground).
https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-accept-carbon-capture-has-failed-heres-what-we-should-do-instead-82929
But for years, CCS was touted as the tech that would unlock coal's contribution to humanity's energy needs. Eventually by the turn of the millenium most acknowledged it would remain a costly pipe dream. So time for another solution.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/02/clean-coal-america-kemper-power-plant
This magic bullet would not only have to slow down the rise in carbon concentrations, but actually reverse them given mitigation was proving so hard to produce. And so we see the emergence of Bio Energy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS).
https://www.carbonbrief.org/beccs-the-story-of-climate-changes-saviour-technology
So BECCS is now used as a placeholder term for any Carbon Dioxide Removal approach. Afforestation, Direct Air Capture, ocean seeding. The specifics don't seem to matter. What's important is that policy makers can point to a future solution. And that's where we come in.
Because academia has unwittingly facilitated inaction. Netzero is an example of technological optimism within the classification of discourses of delay: rather than do the hard work of mitigation now, we instead focus attention on future solutions.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-sustainability/article/discourses-of-climate-delay/7B11B722E3E3454BB6212378E32985A7
And we do that, even when the proposed solutions are absurd. e.g. Direct Air Capture? Really? That is really going to have any serious role in limiting warming to no more than 1.5°C?
Please note: DAC itself is not a bad idea - it's actually very smart. It's proposing to deploy it or any other Carbon Dioxide Removal solution at VAST scale that is stupid and reckless.
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/8/577/2017/esd-8-577-2017.pdf
Similarly, netzero policies are in principle excellent ways to reduce harmful impacts on climate. But by allowing future carbon removals they have been hijacked by a ruthlessly growth-obsessed climate policy process.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/09/16/net-zero-story-target-will-shape-future/
A climate policy process that at national & international scale has never been able to entertain anything other than incremental market-based approaches. A process that finds it easier to conjure up climate unicorns than challenge assumptions about society.
A climate policy process that has spectacularly failed for decades. Rather than accelerate mitigation, netzero may in the end have provided policy makers with ways out of making so-called difficult decisions now.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/12/12/analysis/global-climate-summit-cop-or-cop-out
The time has come to voice our fears and be honest with wider society. Current netzero policies will not keep warming to within 1.5°C because they were never intended to.
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Nowdays we don't speak too well of BECCS. It will consume vast amounts of land and water. It will devastate biodiversity. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/grantham-institute/public/publications/briefing-papers/BECCS-deployment---a-reality-check.pdf
