By Mathew Carr
Dec. 24, 2020 — LONDON: Countries are seen setting both emissions limits and targets for removing heat-trapping gas from the atmosphere.
The idea is important as countries set their contributions to the Paris climate agreement, ideally by the end of this month.
Such a move would eliminate the false compensation arguments being made by companies and countries seeking to “offset” their emissions and hit “net zero” targets, said Niklas Höhne, a founding partner of NewClimate Institute. He is also Special Professor “mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions” at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
“To find a balance between the removal target and the emissions target will be a bit difficult,” Hohne said. “One could say that this is a downside but the advantages really outweigh the downside.”
Here are some of the ways forward for country policy makers, he said:
The price of emitting greenhouse gases needs to be higher than the cost of removing them later from the atmosphere, says Louise Jeffery.
“The crux then is that it has to be more expensive to emit carbon dioxide than it is to remove it,” said Jeffery, a Climate Policy Analyst at NewClimate Institute working on tracking climate action and carbon markets.
“The correct policies and the correct action and the correct pricing today is not going to be the same today as it is in 30 years’ or in 50 years’ time,” she said.
Shoutout to Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, who highlighted policy ideas for countries.
Removal options and costs here:
Stefan Ulreich
Energiewirtschaft
Link: Catalysing large-scale Carbon Dioxide Removal – Louise Jeffery… #CarbonDioxideRemoval. Watch the full webinar: https://www.c2g2.net/c2glearn-catalysing-cdr/
See this for global rich country carbon prices aligning:
http://carrzee.org/2020/12/14/britain-touts-world-first-net-zero-carbon-market-as-it-leaves-eu-and-seeks-trade-deal-with-australia/
(Updated Thursday afternoon with chart)