With increasingly severe climate impacts across the world the urgency to address climate change has never been greater. Mitigation measures such as rapidly decarbonizing the energy systems, achieving energy efficiency, reducing energy demand will be critical for stabilizing the climate. However, science has shown that mitigation alone will not be enough to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. IPCC projections show that all pathways to limit global warming to 1.5°C will require the substantial deployment of greenhouse gas removal (GGR) techniques, particularly to help offset emissions from hard-to-abate sectors, such as aviation, long-distance road transport, shipping, the cement industry, iron and steel, and load-following electricity.
GGR ranks high in the policy agenda of the ever-increasing number of countries that have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 and is increasingly being integrated within the private sector’s net-zero strategies. Beyond net-zero, GGR may still be required to bring cumulative emissions in the atmosphere back to their pre-industrial levels, particularly if the world delays achieving a net-zero target.
Despite wide agreement that GGR will be necessary, many GGR options are currently commercially immature, and their ramp up will entail substantial lead time, planning and resources. Importantly, the deployment of these options at scale raises questions of environmental sustainability, social acceptability and financial viability, amongst other issues.
For these reasons, governance systems that can manage and minimize environmental and social impacts and address future responsibility and liability issues will need to be rapidly developed. Consideration will need to be given not just to enabling conditions for GGR, but also to significant geophysical, environmental, techno-economic, social and institutional constraints and limitations.
This Special Issue aims to collect and disseminate the most relevant research concerning GGR practices and their scale-up potential.
The options covered in this issue include Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), biochar, Direct Air Capture (DAC), ocean fertilisation, enhanced weathering (oceanic and terrestrial), enhanced soil carbon, large scale afforestation and ecosystems restoration, among other examples.
We welcome original research papers, case studies and reviews articles that discuss key governance gaps and examine issues such as techno-economic barriers to scale, ecosystems trade-offs and GGR accounting practices.
The Special Issue will cover the following subtopics:
- CO2 and non-CO2 emission accounting
- Technology assessments
- GGR policy and legal framework
- Ecosystems and biodiversity impacts
- Permanence of CO2 removal
- Remote sensing and digital solutions for MRV
- Social acceptability and governance
