Not on a cliff edge: Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and how we can reach a climate-proof world
“We have the technologies available to reduce emissions radically, and we have the policy tools and instruments to bring these tools into the market if we choose to use them,” says Chair of the IPCC Jim Skea. Carbon Dioxide Removal is no longer a hypothetical backstop set of solutions for the distant future. It is already embedded in land-based solutions, climate scenarios, net-zero targets and emerging policies. This makes the way we quantify, design, and govern CDR a defining issue.
The metaphor of the cliff edge is particularly apt for this new chapter in the IPCC’s history, with Scottish physicist Jim Skea as its chair. “I am genetically optimistic,” he jokes when asked whether the climate crisis will be resolved. But this optimism does not mean that, overnight, we will have the silver bullet that will solve all our problems. Because, precisely, “1.5 does not mean we are on a cliff edge we fall over. It is the effect of a gradual increment.” What optimism does in this case is what scientists do: analyse reality and describe the various options available to achieve a net-zero society. Among these, CDR offers a range of solutions worth considering.
“It is now almost inevitable that we will exceed the global goal of 1.5°C. But, that does not mean it is impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C in the long term” explains Jim Skea, chair of the IPCC. “The only way in which we can draw down temperatures is by removing CO2 from the atmosphere and we need to explore these solutions in more depth and how we implement them.”
This week in Rome, over 150 international experts, including CMCC scientists Soheil Shayegh and Maria Vincenza Chiriacò, gathered as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began work on the 2027 Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage.
On the sidelines of the event, key figures also met at the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security to discuss the role of the IPCC and climate science in policymaking, with a particular emphasis on how to estimate the amount of CO2 that needs to be removed from the atmosphere through different technologies and techniques, providing the foundation and platform for future work on CDR.