Research priorities for negative emissions

By Sabine Fuss, Chris D. Jones, F. Kraxner, G. P. Peters, Peter Smith, Massimo Tavoni, D. V. van Vuuren, J. Canadell, R. B. Jackson, J. Milne and 4 more. 2016

161 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere (CDR)—also known as ‘negative emissions’—features prominently in most 2 °C scenarios and has been under increased scrutiny by scientists, citizens, and policymakers. Critics argue that ‘negative emission technologies’ (NETs) are insufficiently mature to rely on them for climate stabilization. Some even argue that 2 °C is no longer feasible or might have unacceptable social and environmental costs. Nonetheless, the Paris Agreement endorsed an aspirational goal of limiting global warming to even lower levels, arguing that climate impacts—especially for vulnerable nations such as small island states—will be unacceptably severe in a 2 °C world. While there are few pathways to 2 °C that do not rely on negative emissions, 1.5 °C scenarios are barely conceivable without them. Building on previous assessments of NETs, we identify some urgent research needs to provide a more complete picture for reaching ambitious climate targets, and the role that NETs can play in reaching them.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Global and Planetary Change, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3e40146e8cdb459afc9d6a555019568afccb0a8b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. Pete Smith
2. Felix Creutzig
3. M. Callaghan
4. Sabine Fuss
5. J. Minx
6. W. Lamb
7. J. Kuriakose
8. A. Larkin

In Global and Planetary Change

1. Sabine Fuss
2. J. Minx
3. W. Lamb
4. M. Callaghan
5. Felix Creutzig
6. Gregory F. Nemet
7. J. Kuriakose
8. Pete Smith

In Mechanical Engineering

1. Sabine Fuss
2. J. Minx
3. M. Callaghan
4. W. Lamb
5. Pete Smith

Citations in the corpus

• Negative emissions—Part 1: Research landscape and synthesis (2018, background): “…both the scenario literature where BECCS studies initially gained prominence, as well more general discussions of negative emissions where scenarios are often used as a starting point (Smith et al 2016, Anderson 2015, Anderson and Peters 2016, Fuss et al 2014, 2016, Gasser et al 2015, Geden 2015).”
• What if negative emission technologies fail at scale? Implications of the Paris Agreement for big emitting nations (2018, methodology): “First, all IAM scenarios within the IPCC scenario database for a >50% chance of avoiding 2°C and with a policy delay to 2020, expand the available budget through the large-scale uptake of NETs, specifically BECCS (Gough & Vaughan, 2015). As Peters (2016) notes, in the absence of CCS “there needs to ”
• Negative emissions—Part 2: Costs, potentials and side effects (2018, background): “…NETs reported in these previous assessments (Royal Society 2009, McLaren 2012, Friends of the Earth 2011, Vaughan and Lenton 2011, McGlashan et al 2012, National Academy of Sciences 2015, Caldecott et al 2015, Fuss et al 2016, Smith et al 2016a, Rubin et al 2015, Ciais et al 2013, Lenton 2010).”
• Negative emissions—Part 3: Innovation and upscaling (2018, background): “Given the severe constraints imposed by the global carbon budget (Rogelj et al 2016, van Soest et al 2017), the speed at which NETs can be scaled up to make a favorable planetary scale impact is a paramount issue (Fuss et al 2016).”
• A Review of Criticisms of Integrated Assessment Models and Proposed Approaches to Address These, through the Lens of BECCS (2019, background): “, degree of carbon neutrality of bioenergy Concerns related to the carbon neutrality of bioenergy include indirect land use change (iLUC), local barriers, impossibility of large scale biomass production without environmental impacts [90].”