Climate change: why we need negative emissions
Created: 2022-05-29Updated: 2022-05-29 12:06 PM
By: Prof. Christoph M. Schmidt
Prof. Dr.
Christoph M. Schmidt is President of the RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research and Professor at the Ruhr University Bochum.
© © N. Bruckmann/M.
Litzka/RWI/Sven Lorenz
Climate change has recently receded into the background in the public debate.
The problem is becoming more and more urgent and calls for new solutions.
An important approach could be negative emissions.
In the guest article, Prof. Christoph M. Schmidt from RWI explains what that is and how they could help in the fight against global warming.
Bochum - The Russian attack on Ukraine has pushed the corona pandemic and even more so climate change from the front pages of the newspapers in the past three months.
The latest news from climate research has largely received little public attention, although it has by no means lost its drama: at the beginning of May, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published a forecast according to which there could be a year by 2026 with a probability of around 50 percent , where the global mean temperature is more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Fighting climate change: We are running out of time
A few years ago, such a rapid increase in temperature was considered very unlikely.
Last but not least, the international community agreed in the Paris climate agreement to permanently limit global warming to well below two degrees and if possible below 1.5 degrees.
The fact that this battle could be lost before efforts to protect the global climate really pick up speed was not the basis for the negotiations.
Now the current WMO report shows how quickly we are running out of time in the fight against climate change.
voice of economists
Climate change, supply bottlenecks, corona pandemic: Rarely before has interest in the economy been as great as it is now.
This applies to current news, but also to very fundamental questions: How do the billions in corona aid and the debt brake go together?
What can we do about the climate crisis without jeopardizing our competitiveness?
How do we secure our pension?
And how do we generate the prosperity of tomorrow?
In our new series ,
voices of economists
, Germany's leading economists are now providing guest contributions in the form of assessments, insights and study results on the most important economic topics - profound, competent and opinionated.
Climate Change: Negative Emissions - Removing Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere
However, with the emission reductions that have currently been decided or, in many cases, only been discussed politically up to now, it will not be possible to keep global warming within the desired framework.
This had already been shown by the analysis of climate models by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In view of these sobering facts, it will be inevitable to remove some of the carbon dioxide that has already been emitted from the atmosphere.
These so-called negative emissions can be achieved, for example, through afforestation and special forms of land management.
There are also various technological solutions, some of which are not yet fully developed and whose risks have not yet been adequately researched - for example processes in which CO2 is extracted from the air and stored underground.
Negative emissions have so far played a subordinate role in the political discussion.
Skeptics fear that negative emissions could tempt people to slack off on reducing emissions.
In fact, the avoidance of greenhouse gases must remain the focus of global climate policy by switching to renewable energies and green transport technologies as well as more sustainable agriculture and forestry.
more on the subject
Economy: economy in permanent crisis mode
Energy price inflation: The ECB must act now
Threatened delivery stop for Russian gas: no time for ideological reservations
Climate protection: need specifically tracked negative emissions
Nevertheless, global warming cannot be limited to below 1.5 degrees in any climate protection scenario calculated to date without negative emissions.
There are two main reasons for this: First, some emissions can hardly be avoided, this applies in particular to agriculture.
Secondly, as things stand at present, it will hardly be possible to reduce emissions quickly enough in the other sectors either.
Ultimately, we need both: extensive avoidance of emissions and targeted negative emissions.
Politicians and society must therefore openly deal with the opportunities, risks and side effects of negative emissions and answer the question of what importance negative emissions should have in the climate protection strategy.
It is also necessary to clarify which procedures could be used in which areas.
From an economic perspective, it will be particularly important to set the right incentives for negative emissions.
Among other things, it is about whether emissions can be offset by CO2 removal in the same country and whether there should also be international emissions trading for negative emissions.
About the author:
Prof. Dr.
dr
hc Christoph M. Schmidt is President of the RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research and Professor at the Ruhr University Bochum.
As part of his work for the academy project "Energy Systems of the Future" (ESYS), Schmidt was recently involved in a paper on negative emissions.
