Devin Todd is researcher-in-residence, negative emissions technologies, at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.
Reducing emissions isn’t enough to solve the climate crisis. As the world meets in Egypt at COP27 to discuss navigating our climate emergency, hopes are now turning to emerging “negative emissions technologies” that can remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and lock them away.
We’re going to need NETs to meet any net-zero goal and to ideally limit global warming to 1.5 C above preindustrial levels by 2050. Follow such approaches and practices in the news, and you will see grand proposals: planting forests to photosynthetically drawdown carbon dioxide; machines that suck CO2 from the air with chemical sponges; changing ocean chemistry to draw down CO2 from the air. Some ideas might come across as “natural,” others more “engineered.”
NETs are also creating a buzz with venture capitalists and large corporations. For some, that’s an unsettling starting point to an incredibly important public conversation about our shared future. Indeed, we must ensure these planet-saving yet potentially disruptive technologies are deployed wisely and in the public interest.
Despite the urgency, an organized sector does not yet exist to develop NETs. We lack vision for what quantities we need or what qualities they require – or even who is responsible for convening that conversation.
What we do know: NETs cannot come at the expense of aggressively reducing current sources of “positive” emissions. These technologies must compliment a rapidly decarbonizing world. And, if we’re going to use them as part of the climate solution, we need a concrete strategy for their use moving forward.
My recent report, Survive and Thrive: Why BC needs a CO2 removal strategy now, urges our public policy makers in British Columbia and throughout Canada to take a leadership role in the essential and urgent task of unlocking the potential of NETs.
The B.C. government supports the development of NETs, as outlined in the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030 report, and Ottawa has voiced approval as well. We look to governments to provide the leadership for a strategy to apply these solutions with eyes wide open and the public interest always at the forefront.
Decision makers need to see past the marketing and dig into the particulars to fully understand how the use of a certain NET in a certain place will unfold. Benefits and impacts need to be carefully weighed, informed by diverse local, regional and global perspectives, including scientists and Indigenous communities, along with industry and other voices.
We need to be visionary and values-based, fostering deep collaboration, yet be decisively quick in developing this strategy. We need to form a “catalytic community” that has the agility and ingenuity of the private sector with the long-term capacity of the public sector.
We also need to ask the right questions: Where is the carbon originating? How is it captured? Where is it going? How permanent is that destination? What are the long-term implications? Who will be affected and why?
NETs will have impacts and they won’t necessarily be gentle ones – they will weigh on the relationships amongst the human, non-human, lands and waters – which means difficult decisions lie ahead.
We have an opportunity to develop a made-in-Canada strategy for NETs and, if we do, our country will demonstrate its global leadership in this emerging and essential sector.
But time is of the essence: We cannot afford to repeat the pattern of indecisiveness that has gotten us to this point in the climate crisis. The clamour of politics and the marketplace must not distract us, and we must step forward knowing all of life on Earth is imperilled.
A strategic and ethical commitment to NETs is an essential part of sustainable, long-lasting climate action.