There's a lot to like about BCG's new Scaling CDR: Drivers for Durable Carbon Removal report. It clearly lays out the contours of a conversation about demand many of us are having in workshops and conferences and various CDR-focused spaces. https://lnkd.in/euZ_SxjD One thread that I want to pull on -- 📈 BCG estimates 6-10 Gt of residual emissions in 2050 (excluding land use), assuming all abatement less than $450/ton is achieved. ⬇️ They also estimate that we could get 0.5-2.5 Gt of durable removal from existing and proposed policies, primarily incorporation of durable CDR into carbon pricing schemes. 💰 This requires threading the needle on price: expensive enough to drive decarbonization, but not so expensive as to be unrealistic. 🔁 The policies in the report are still, more or less, operating under the ton-for-ton offsetting paradigm. (For ex, in an ETS, you can get 1 allowance by buying 1 ton of CDR, to compensate for 1 ton of emissions.) Which leaves me wondering: where is the remaining 3.5-9.5 Gt going to come from? And I'm not the only one. I've heard a lot of conversations recently -- at the Negative Emissions Conference in Oxford, London Climate Action Week, and elsewhere -- about policies "beyond offsetting." These are policies that generate net carbon removal without requiring the creation and tracking of tradable, ton-denominated credits. This is drawdown mode. We understand intuitively that offsetting is not the only policy driver for nature-based carbon removal. I don't think anyone is laboring under the assumption that converting every single tree in the world into a carbon credit is the best and only way to protect forests. Offsetting is just one (limited) tool in the toolkit. But I don't think we've really articulated what that could look like for durable/tech/engineered CDR. 1️⃣ Can we envision alternative supply-push and demand-pull policies for durable CDR? 2️⃣ Can we work with corporate voluntary buyers to identify and test "hidden" removals across industries, then leverage regulatory policy to turn novel ideas into norms? 3️⃣ Can we implement those policies with fit-for-purpose standards that prove carbon was actually removed from the atmosphere? Been spending a lot of time on these questions, with some of my favorite people in CDR. More soon!
Anna J. LEHNER
4mo
Looking forward to much more soon!
Associate Research Director at Carbon Gap
5moThinking in drawdown mode only makes policy more interesting and CDR more compelling ! I am all for "beyond offsetting." policies. The challenge is to navigate the political headwinds and create the required political traction and cooperation. Not a small job in the current context 😅