There are still 22 years left until Germany is supposed to be climate-neutral. If the federal government wants to achieve this goal, it not only has to push ahead with a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but also expand a crucial measure: the removal of CO? from the atmosphere. “Anyone who says yes to net zero has also already said yes to CO? removal,” says Oliver Geden, Senior Fellow at the German Science and Politics Foundation (SWP), at the presentation of the new report “Status of Co2 removal” in Berlin.
So far, 120 countries have said “yes” to net zero. Including Germany. At this point in time, however, there is still a “big gap” in a crucial building block on the path to CO? neutrality: the removal of CO? from the atmosphere, as stated in the first major management report. Researchers from four universities and foundations in Germany, the USA and Great Britain write that a temperature rise of well below two degrees is not possible without expanding carbon dioxide removal (CDR).
What is CO? removal anyway?
CO? removal is actually nothing new. Trees, plants, swamps, forests: they are all an important part of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The so-called conventional methods of removing CO? include afforestation and soil management. According to the report, these methods account for a large part of the total of two gigatons of CO? removed annually with CDR.
How much is two gigatonnes of CO??
To bind a tonne of CO?, a beech tree has to grow for around 80 years. Or to put it another way: A car journey of around 4900 kilometers with a mid-range petrol engine causes around one tonne of CO?. It is estimated that global CO? emissions in 2022 were 40.6 gigatonnes.
What other removal options are there?
The most well-known technologies to date for the production of CO? are bioenergy with CO? capture and storage (BECCS) and direct capture of CO? from air (DACCS). In the first method, CO? is captured by biogas plants. The second involves pulling carbon dioxide directly from the air. The extracted CO? must then be stored somewhere – for example in products such as durable building materials, or underground. According to the authors of the report, not enough CO? could be captured without these innovative methods.
Are these technologies already widespread?
These methods are only used on a small scale – many ideas are still in the research phase and are not yet applied. In total, new technologies are currently removing 0.002 gigatonnes of CO? per year, according to the report. According to the report’s researchers, the use of new removal technologies would need to increase 1,300-fold by 2050 to limit warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius.
Why not just reduce CO? emissions?
This is still very important in order to achieve the climate targets. However, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, simply reducing CO? emissions is no longer sufficient to achieve the 1.5 degree target. Depending on the climate policy of the respective government, more or fewer CDR measures are necessary. Basically, the calculation looks like this: If less is emitted, less has to be captured. In all scenarios, however, the development of new methods for CO? removal is still necessary, according to the authors of the report.
How is the situation in Germany?
The 2019 Climate Protection Act does not yet have a reference to CO? removal. The traffic light government now sees the need for “negative technical emissions” in its coalition agreement. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck has already announced that CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) technology will also be used in Germany. However, this technology is still prohibited in Germany.
Why?
Critics fear that the gas will escape from the storage facilities. There is also concern that the technology will reduce the incentive to avoid greenhouse gases in the first place. BUND chairman Olaf Bandt called it “highly dangerous for climate protection that the evaluation of the CCS law was overshadowed by industry interests”. The industry wants to dump its emissions under the North Sea instead of reducing them.
So reduce instead of removing?
This is precisely the delicate balancing act of CO? removal. This technology is not a “cure-all”, write the authors of the report. They warn against seeing the removal of CO? from the atmosphere as an alternative to climate protection. A rapid and far-reaching reduction in emissions is urgently needed. But: “It’s not about either/or. We need both,” said co-author Geden when the report was presented. Because there will always be residual emissions that have to be offset.
