Expert assessment concludes negative emissions scenarios may not deliver

By N. Vaughan, C. Gough. 2016

163 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Many integrated assessment models (IAMs) rely on the availability and extensive use of biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) to deliver emissions scenarios consistent with limiting climate change to below 2 °C average temperature rise. BECCS has the potential to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, delivering ‘negative emissions’. The deployment of BECCS at the scale assumed in IAM scenarios is highly uncertain: biomass energy is commonly used but not at such a scale, and CCS technologies have been demonstrated but not commercially established. Here we present the results of an expert elicitation process that explores the explicit and implicit assumptions underpinning the feasibility of BECCS in IAM scenarios. Our results show that the assumptions are considered realistic regarding technical aspects of CCS but unrealistic regarding the extent of bioenergy deployment, and development of adequate societal support and governance structures for BECCS. The results highlight concerns about the assumed magnitude of carbon dioxide removal achieved across a full BECCS supply chain, with the greatest uncertainty in bioenergy production. Unrealistically optimistic assumptions regarding the future availability of BECCS in IAM scenarios could lead to the overshoot of critical warming limits and have significant impacts on near-term mitigation options.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c2911e500c9768ab8f06856e84a561acee5dddc6

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. Jason Hickel
2. J. Kuriakose
3. A. Larkin
4. Maria Sharmina
5. M. Callaghan
6. Sabine Fuss
7. J. Minx
8. Pete Smith

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. Jason Hickel

In Mechanical Engineering

1. Sabine Fuss
2. J. Minx
3. M. Callaghan
4. W. Lamb
5. Pete Smith
6. Jason Hickel
7. Mathias Fridahl
8. Mariliis Lehtveer

Citations in the corpus

• A Review of Criticisms of Integrated Assessment Models and Proposed Approaches to Address These, through the Lens of BECCS (2019, background): “Such approaches include highly detailed regional and national land use models (building on [103]), expert elicitations and workshops to survey a range of views on the real-world feasibility and challenges of achieving different levels of BECCS [100] and earth system modelling to explore the planetar”
• Fast growing research on negative emissions (2017, background): “This kicked-off a controversial debate that focused on the feasibility of climate change mitigation pathways that involve large amounts of NETs (Fuss et al 2014, Anderson 2015, Geden 2015, Vaughan and Gough 2016).”
• What if negative emission technologies fail at scale? Implications of the Paris Agreement for big emitting nations (2018, background): “…both because there are many major and potentially insurmountable obstacles to their successful uptake at scale (Brack, 2017; Fuss et al., 2016; International Energy Agency, 2016; Smith & Torn, 2013; Vaughan & Gough, 2016), and to provide a complement to the wealth of scenarios that do include them.”
• Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS): Global potential, investment preferences, and deployment barriers (2018, background): “From this perspective, BECCS is a relatively complex technological system [36,15].”
• The contradiction of the sustainable development goals: Growth versus ecology on a finite planet (2019, result): “This conclusion is shared by a growing number of scientists (e.g., Fuss et al., 2014; Vaughan & Gough, 2016; Larkin, Kuriakose, Sharmina, & Anderson, 2017; Van Vuuren et al., 2018), and by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (2018).”