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Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation

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  • ICFG | Perspectives Climate Research

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This white paper resulted from a risk dialogue project with climate scientists and experts on the subject of climate engineering – conducted by the neutral and independent Risk-Dialogue Foundation St. Gallen between April 2016 and March 2017. The aim was to identify the current state of research on the topic as well as related risk and to evaluate a potential need for wider public deliberation. The project was carried out on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), Climate Division. In line with views expressed during the dialogue, the sole objective of this paper is to argue for an open and public deliberation process and not to favour or promote any technologies or deployment thereof. The views expressed in this report are solely those of its authors, and do not reflect any official positions
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White Paper
Climate change, negative emissions and
solar radiation management: It is time for
an open societal conversation
Final Version Swiss Climate Engineering Science Dialogue
Zurich, May 2017
Matthias Honegger, Steffen Münch, Annette Hirsch, Christoph Beuttler, Thomas Peter
Wil Burns, Oliver Geden, Timo Goeschl, Daniel Gregorowius, David Keith, Markus
Lederer, Axel Michaelowa, Janos Pasztor, Stefan Schäfer, Sonia Seneviratne, Andrea
Stenke, Anthony Patt, Ivo Wallimann-Helmer
Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation
2
About this white paper
This white paper resulted from a risk dialogue project with climate scientists
and experts on the subject of climate engineering conducted by the neutral
and independent Risk-Dialogue Foundation St. Gallen between April 2016
and March 2017. The aim was to identify the current state of research on the
topic as well as related risk and to evaluate a potential need for wider public
deliberation. The project was carried out on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office
for the Environment (FOEN), Climate Division. In line with views expressed
during the dialogue, the sole objective of this paper is to argue for an open
and public deliberation process and not to favour or promote any
technologies or deployment thereof. The views expressed in this report are
solely those of its authors, and do not reflect any official positions.
Please cite as:
Honegger, M.; Münch, S.; Hirsch, A.; Beuttler, C.; Peter, T.; Burns,
W.; Geden, O.; Goeschl, T.; Gregorowius, D.; Keith, D.; Lederer, M.;
Michaelowa, A.; Pasztor, J.; Schäfer, S.; Seneviratne, S.; Stenke, A.; Patt,
A.; Wallimann-Helmer, I. (2017). Climate change, negative emissions and
solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation.
White Paper by Risk-Dialogue Foundation St.Gallen for the Swiss Federal
Office for the Environment.
Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation
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Key Messages
To limit climate risk, 197 nations agreed at the Paris conference in 2015 to cap
warming well below 2 °C or even at 1.5 °C. There is growing evidence that both
goals may not be achievable by cutting greenhouse gas emissions alone, given that
without other measures full decarbonisation would be needed before 2050. This is
not reflected in current policy plans.
Mitigation remains key: Decisive cuts of greenhouse gas emissions with a global
decline starting no later than 2020 are essential for limiting climate risks. A rapid
and systematic reduction of CO2 emissions is the most important requirement, and
delays would significantly increase the risk of dangerous climate change.
An open societal conversation needs to address the emerging topic of climate
engineering. The possibility of novel approaches to limit climate risk is increasingly
discussed among researchers and carries important social, environmental, and
ethical implications and risks. Tough questions on governance, protection against
misuse, costs, benefits and risks of both climate change and climate engineering
demand an open conversation in order to build a robust basis for reasoned and
democratic decisions in Switzerland and indeed the whole world.
Negative emissions: Capturing CO2 from ambient air and storing it underground is
sometimes termed as a type of climate engineering, which will likely be needed at
large scale later this century. Switzerland alone might need to remove 280 million
tons of CO2 before 2100. Besides raising important social, environmental and
ethical questions, it is unclear whether CO2 removal can actually be funded and
implemented at such scales. Relying on CO2 removal now could be detrimental
later, if it turns out to be infeasible.
Solar radiation management e.g. by redirecting sunlight through reflective
particles in the atmosphere is a fundamentally different type of climate engineering.
While it could help prevent some severe consequences of climate change, it
introduces significant novel risks and it could be misused to justify delays in
mitigation or negative emissions. Again, many scientific, political, social, and ethical
questions are to be addressed and explored transparently in order to judge its
merits.
Switzerland can take an active role in reaching the goals of Paris and
establishing a frank conversation by promoting research to better understand the
urgency and challenges of CO2 emissions reductions, by working to address the
governance challenge posed by climate engineering, and by pioneering a proactive
approach to public deliberation on these difficult but important questions.
Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation
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Why we must address the cause of climate change more decisively than ever
Climate change poses severe threats to most people, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
1
To limit
these threats, the Paris Agreement has set a target of limiting warming to well below 2 °C and to
pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C in order to constrain climate risks to
manageable levels.
2
To this end, the Paris Agreement calls on the global community to reach net-
zero emissions a balance of emitted greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and sinks
3
thereof in
the second half of the century
4
. This is an enormous challenge for the international community.
Currently, the global economy is largely powered by fossil fuels, and a global transformation that
allows eliminating GHG emissions from most human activities will take time despite the growing
understanding that this is necessary.
5
Current climate models tell us that we can emit only another
5-20 years worth of current emissions if we want to achieve this target. Although national
commitments made in the Paris Agreement are a big step for international climate diplomacy, they
move the world forward on a path to around 3 ˚C, rather than the envisaged 1.5 to 2 °C and thus
fall short of meeting the Paris goals.
6
Therefore, it is entirely possible that these targets will not be
met. Furthermore, incoming government administrations sometimes undo legislative progress
made by previous administrations causing further delays. Unless there are substantial changes of
political, social, or economic trajectories compared to those assumed within IPCC scenarios, it is
improbable that even the 2 °C target can be met. A frank public discourse needs to address this
discrepancy and evaluate how to best establish more stringent climate policies for curbing GHG
emissions.
Can carbon be taken back out of the atmosphere?
Many climate experts argue that large-scale operation of technologies or practices that yield so-
called negative emissions meaning the removal of GHGs from the atmosphere would allow us
to still meet the Paris targets despite the present political inertia. Removing CO2 addresses the
cause of climate change, namely elevated atmospheric GHG concentrations. In fact, most IPCC
mitigation scenarios compatible with the 2 °C target and all those compatible with the 1.5 °C
target already rely on the assumption that large-scale applications of negative emissions will be
taking place.4 These scenarios and the Paris Agreement itself are predicated on the rapid
upscaling of CO2 removal activities within decades, leading to removal of CO2 that exceeds
remaining emissions to achieve ‘net negative emissions’ (see the following box).
1
IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects.
Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
[Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada,
R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.)]. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 1132 pp.
2
UNFCCC (2015). Paris Agreement. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Retrieved from
http://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf
3
Article 1, para 8 of the text establishing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
states that: “Sink” means any process, activity or mechanism which removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a
precursor of a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.
4
See the graph on the following page. Besides the Paris Agreement stating the balance is to be achieved „in the second
half of the century”, Rogelj et al. (2015) have shown that for 1.5 °C net zero carbon emissions worldwide ought to be
achieved between 2045 and 2060. See Rogelj, J., Luderer, G., Pietzcker, R. C., Kriegler, E., Schaeffer, M., Krey, V., &
Riahi, K. (2015). Energy system transformations for limiting end-of-century warming to below 1.5 °C. Nature Climate
Change, 5(6), 519527. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2572
5
International Energy Agency. (2016). World Energy Outlook 2016 - Executive Summary. Paris, France: OECD/IEA.
Retrieved from
https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/WorldEnergyOutlook2016ExecutiveSummaryEnglish.pdf
6
Rogelj, J., Den Elzen, M., Höhne, N., Fransen, T., Fekete, H., Winkler, H., Schaeffer, R., Sha, F., Riahi, K. &
Meinshausen, M. (2016). Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 C. Nature, 534
(7609), 631-639.
Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation
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In some scenarios, the scaling-up of negative emissions is assumed to start as early as within the
next decade. However, negative emissions technologies are currently not at a level of maturity or
scale to accomplish this. Moreover, we do not have the necessary policy instruments in place to
provide regulatory guidance and help mobilize critical financial resources. The most prominent
approach is to use biomass for thermal power generation, while sequestering and storing the
resulting CO2 in the ground
7
, yet other approaches have also been discussed.
8
Large-scale
implementation of such land-intensive methods is likely problematic and fraught with social
7
IPCC (2014): Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E.
Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer,
C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New
York, NY, USA.
8
Royal Society (2009): Geoengineering the climate science, governance and uncertainty; S Policy document 10/09.
Understanding anthropogenic drivers: emissions reductions, negative emissions, and
net negative emissions.
Historical emissions and the anticipated business-as-usual scenario are shown in dark grey.
The light grey area between 2015 and 2030 represents emissions resulting from
implementation of countries’ current promises under the Paris Agreement. The red area
represents emissions under a hypothetical ambitious GHG mitigation path. The beige area
below the x-axis represents negative emissions or CO2-removals. The black line represents
net emissions i.e. subtracting the volume of negative emissions (in beige) from emissions (in
red). Upon crossing the x-axis, the net emissions line indicates achieving net zero emissions.
Only once negative emissions exceed emissions, net negative emissions are achieved and the
CO2 concentration in the atmosphere starts to decline.
Adapted from: Anderson, K., & Peters, G. (2016). The trouble with negative emissions. Science, 354(6309), 182-183.
Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation
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conflicts, given that it could divert resources away from the production of food crops and forests,
affecting food security and livelihoods, as experienced in the production of biofuels for
transportation.
9
This means that a frank conversation is needed to anticipate and proactively
address potential conflicts of land-based carbon removal approaches and to include different
viewpoints for designing policy instruments that reflect social values and minimize adverse
outcomes, while acknowledging that socially acceptable levels of biomass energy with carbon
capture and storage deployment may never reach the scale that some mitigation pathways
assume.
Other approaches such as directly capturing carbon from the atmosphere through chemical or
biological “filters” are tentatively being tested. Their primary advantage is that they do not require
large amounts of productive land. However, these technologies come with their own challenges, in
particular their large energy requirements and correspondingly high costs.
10
Deploying these
technologies at the scales envisioned by the IPCC would cost several percent of global economic
product unless the costs of these technologies can be dramatically downscaled. The need for
negative emissions thus raises questions of justice such as: Who will be paying for this
atmospheric clean-up operation?
11
In the absence of substantial dedicated research and
development programs, progress on such technologies is likely to be too slow. Even if a technical
process could be developed that reduced energy use to a minimum, a global funding effort or a
substantial global price on carbon will be required to build and maintain a global industry that
cleans up our atmosphere. This effort far exceeds anything achieved yet at the international level
and for this to be possible, it would be essential to begin a societal conversation early on how to
make research, development and financing succeed in the short time available.
Some fear that by paying attention to such technologies a political argument for scaling back
efforts toward classical mitigation can be made. Such behaviour would be unethical and dangerous
given that cutting emissions is the only way to address the source of the climate change problem.
Nevertheless, some might still try to make that argument for political reasons a concern that should
be taken seriously. However, a frank conversation also has to be based on the best available
scientific knowledge: By improving our understanding of the mitigation challenge and the potential
9
Kraxner, F., Fuss, S., Krey, V., Best, D., Leduc, S., Kindermann, G., Yamagata, Y., Schepaschenko, D., Shvidenko, A.,
Aoki, K. and Yan, J., (2015): The role of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) for climate
policy. Handbook of Clean Energy Systems.
10
Keith, D. W. (2009): Why capture CO2 from the atmosphere? Science, 325(5948), 1654-1655.
11
See e.g.: Gardiner, S., (2010): Is arming the future with geoengineering really the lesser evil? Chapter 16. In: Gardiner,
S., Caney, S., Jamieson, D., Shue, H. (eds.), Climate Ethics: Essential Readings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 284
314.
Climate engineering / geoengineering
Climate engineering or geoengineering are methods and technologies that aim
to deliberately alter the climate system at a global scale in order to alleviate the
impacts of climate change. There are two types:
1. Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) or Carbon Dioxide Removal
(CDR) encompasses technologies that remove greenhouse gases from the
atmosphere and store them permanently.
2. Solar Radiation Management (SRM) encompasses technologies that
reduce warming by reflecting some amount of sunlight back to space (e.g.
through the dispersion of aerosols in the atmosphere).
Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation
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need for large-scale use of hard-to-deploy technologies we can raise awareness of the urgency to
phase out GHG emissions.
12
Currently there is no systematic governance framework in place to guide further research or to
facilitate decision making about deployment of negative emissions other than the Paris Agreement,
which remains rather unspecific on this aspect. By not making plans for decarbonizing our global
economy by before 2050, we are as a global community currently fooling ourselves into relying on
untested negative emissions technologies
13
. Negative emissions technologies cannot be a silver
bullet magically solving climate change. These technologies have to contribute incrementally to the
overall challenge of dealing with dangerously high GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. We
need to have a frank conversation about the fact that only by an unprecedented concerted global
effort they can be applied at significant scales, while also taking into account possible conflicts over
limited natural resources and the need to achieve sustainable development. This conversation
needs to take place so that policy decisions are taken in a balanced and well-deliberated manner.13
Can we limit the sun’s energy reaching earth?
The other kind of intervention, which is fundamentally different from reducing emissions and CO2-
removal, is called solar radiation management (SRM). It is very controversial, but as the recent
IPCC fifth assessment report puts it if realizable, could to some degree offset global temperature
rise and some of its effects”.
14
As described in the previous sections, climate change that
corresponds to current policy planning gravely exceeds what appears to be acceptable risk levels
and it is a real possibility that negative emissions technologies do not deliver at the scale they
would need to. These two observations give reason to believe that ecosystem collapses and
societal disruptions reversing decades of development are a real risk under anticipated climate
change. While far from perfect as we will describe in the following, there is a possibility that SRM
could alleviate such risks and this possibility should be taken seriously. One such approach would
be to introduce additional aerosols small particles into the upper atmosphere, such that a
fraction of the incoming sunlight is scattered back to space, resulting in less solar energy reaching
Earth’s surface. Volcanic eruptions, as well as atmospheric models, have shown that aerosols
indeed generate a cooling effect and that in small doses they also might put a break on a general
acceleration of rainfall that is expected under climate change.
15
Other ideas for SRM also exist, but
we will focus on stratospheric aerosol injection given its prominence in the academic discourse.8
SRM would not eliminate all of the threats of high GHG concentrations (e.g. ocean acidification),
and it could introduce new risks, e.g. changes in regional rainfall patterns or a rapid increase in
temperature if it were suddenly discontinued. The amount of research devoted to understanding
these risks, and finding ways of mitigating them through the specific choice of technologies and
deployment patterns, has been extremely low considering the large risk climate change poses.
Conducting the research to find out whether SRM could complement rapid mitigation and CO2
removal in a comprehensive risk management approach, may need to become a high priority for
government funding agencies. A frank conversation is needed on whether and how such research
can be undertaken in a way that does not undermine but strengthen global efforts to address
climate change.
12
Reynolds, J. (2015): A critical examination of the climate engineering moral hazard and risk compensation concern.
The Anthropocene Review, 2(2), 118.
13
Fuss, S., Canadell, J.G., Peters, G.P., Tavoni, M., Andrew, R.M., Ciais, P., Jackson, R.B., Jones, C.D., Kraxner, F.,
Nakicenovic, N. and Le Quéré, C. (2014): Betting on negative emissions. Nature Climate Change, 4(10), pp.850-853.
14
Page 89 in IPCC (2014): Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the
Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A.
Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 151 pp.
15
Keith, D. W., & MacMartin, D. G. (2015): A temporary, moderate and responsive scenario for solar
geoengineering. Nature Climate Change, 5(3), 201-206.
Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation
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Given that SRM does not directly address the cause of the climate change problem and given that
it would likely represent one of the largest and longest lasting human interventions in
environmental systems rivalled only by our unwitting emissions of greenhouse gases in the first
place it is seen by many as morally more problematic than negative emissions technologies. It
could be especially problematic if it competes with efforts to eliminate GHG emissions or to remove
GHG from the atmosphere.
16
Some take issue with the deliberate modification of nature that SRM
embodies, yet humanity has reached a point where our activity is already fundamentally altering
the planet. If SRM offered a chance to save lives or limit environmental degradation, it seems at
least debatable whether it would really be preferable to leave it off the table.
17
Given that unwanted
effects of SRM application likely increase with the volume of its application, meaningful application
would have to be limited and combined with strengthened efforts to remove CO2 as well as with
measures to adapt and compensate for damages.
18
All of this indicates an important ethical
dimension associated with decisions on SRM intertwined with other efforts to fight climate
change.
19
Careful deliberation of the ethics and appropriate principles of conduct arguably require
public participation.
20
The governance issues arising from SRM pose particular challenges at the international level. How
can the international community decide to start and eventually to cease using such measures?
How can continued funding be ensured given that contrary to most mitigation investments SRM
represents continuous costs? How will decisions be made over unequally distributed results and
how are environmental and social impacts to be attenuated? What are impacts regarding local and
global justice, human rights and how can they be addressed? How can international governance
frameworks be designed to withstand geopolitical changes over the many decades during which
they need to be operational? The international research community has started exploring these
difficult but unavoidable questions, but Switzerland has so far hardly contributed to this research.
The global policy community has not addressed any of these questions and it is important that
countries start setting in motion the processes which will eventually allow answering these
questions in a deliberate and democratic manner.
21
This will require a global conversation on what
constitutes an appropriate design of climate engineering governance institutions, in which
Switzerland will want to participate.
Why a frank public conversation is needed
There is a need to publicly discuss the questions and issues raised in the previous sections for
three reasons: Firstly, the possibility of severe climate change risks emerging this century,
secondly the reliance on untested technologies to remove greenhouse gases from our atmosphere
and finally the theoretical possibility of Solar Radiation Management technologies being used.
These three issues are related and we argue they deserve more attention and public deliberation
due to their far-reaching societal relevance. We believe a frank public conversation will help society
and policymakers to address these issues and enhance the quality and legitimacy of decisions
16
Preston, C. J. (2013): Ethics and geoengineering: reviewing the moral issues raised by solar radiation management
and carbon dioxide removal. In: Climate Change, 4(1): 23-37.
17
For further reading see: Jamieson, D. (2010): Climate Change, Responsibility, and Justice. In: Science and
Engineering Ethics, 16(3): 431445.
18
Svoboda, T., Irvine, P. (2014): Ethical and Technical Challenges in Compensating for Harm Due to Solar Radiation
Management Geoengineering. In: Ethics, Policy & Environment, 17(2), 157174.
19
Svoboda, T., Keller, K., Goes, M., Tuana, N. (2011): Sulfate Aerosol Geoengineering: The Question of Justice. In:
Public Affairs Quarterly, 25(3), 157179.
20
See also Tuana, N., Sriver, R. I., Svoboda, T., Olson, R., Irvine, P. J., Haqq-Misra, J., Keller, K. (2012): Towards
Integrated Ethical and Scientific Analysis of Geoengineering: A Research Agenda. Ethics, Policy and Environment, 15(2):
136157.
21
This is the objective of a new project of the Carnegie Council under the leadership of Janos Pasztor (see
https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/programs/ccgg/index.html)
Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation
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ultimately taken. Research shows that early public deliberation of emerging issues of public
concern regularly results in better and more legitimate decisions.
22
We believe that early
deliberation on the basis of a dialogue between citizens, decision makers and experts in the form
of an inclusive, honest and proactive conversation can help building up critical contextual
knowledge and an understanding of complex and interlinked issues surrounding climate change
and climate engineering. During such conversations different concerns, opinions and viewpoints
not foreseen by experts often surface. Such a broad-based understanding then serves as a basis
to arrive at comprehensive and well-supported decisions that reflect societal values and
preferences. However, such deliberative and political processes take years or even decades.
Given that climate engineering is becoming more and more prominent in discussions on climate
change, there is currently still time to start a public conversation in a deliberative spirit. Taking this
opportunity would allow addressing critical issues in a deliberated, transparent and democratic
manner in line with Swiss democratic practice and based on Swiss leadership in climate change
science and diplomacy.
What Switzerland’s role can be
Switzerland is an important player for international policy the United Nations Office at Geneva
(UNOG) is the second largest of the four major office sites of the United Nations. Switzerland is a
Party to the Paris Agreement and it appears likely that at least some governance aspects of
climate engineering may be addressed in context of the Agreement’s implementation. In
international climate negotiations Switzerland often acts as a pioneer, as was the case in 2015
when it was the first country to submit its national mitigation contribution and it is widely viewed
among climate change diplomats as a champion for the environment. At the same time,
Switzerland is home to some of the world’s most renowned climate scientists and hosting its
secretariat in Geneva it significantly contributes to the work of the IPCC. Switzerland is known for
its history of proactively addressing environmental problems. Removing carbon from the
atmosphere represents the equivalent of cleaning up environmental pollution, in addition to
stopping new pollution. This is what the people of Switzerland have done in the past with other
forms of pollution, including phosphates in surface waters, and toxic chemicals in our soils.
Its liberal political system and direct democracy puts Switzerland high on global rankings of
democratic practice.
23
Moreover, Switzerland’s state policies perform well on environmental and
sustainability rankings
24
with significant investments in green innovations anticipating future
environmental problems. The Swiss energy strategy enhances security of supply and energy
efficiency and the use of more renewable energy is a good example of green investment planning
in Switzerland. Climate change is a problem that requires both qualities democracy and
anticipation because deliberating and addressing the issues surrounding mitigation, negative
emissions and SRM are long-term projects, requiring a great deal of public consideration and
analysis. Getting public conversations going including on difficult topics is what makes
Switzerland strong as a country and it is how problems get solved.
Furthermore, every country has a responsibility to not only stop emissions by the second half of the
century, but to even get to a point, where its removals exceed its remaining emissions.
Switzerland’s responsibility according to a number of global calculations of what constitutes a fair
global distribution of the remaining carbon budget is to remove more GHGs than our country emits
22
Nanz, P., & Steffek, J. (2005): Assessing the democratic quality of deliberation in international governance: criteria and
research strategies. Acta politica, 40(3), 368-383.
23
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2016 puts Switzerland in 8th position in its global democracy
index.
24
The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) puts Switzerland on the 16th place in 2016 concerning the environmental
performance of a state's policies. Both in 2012 and 2014 Switzerland was on the first place.
Climate change, negative emissions and solar radiation management: It is time for an open societal conversation
10
during the period from 2050 to 2100.
25
This excess removal amount corresponds to approximately
six times the GHGs that Switzerland emitted in 2016. That is a lot of negative emissions for which
this country is responsible and a frank conversation is required to figure out how Switzerland can
deliver on this responsibility and how it being a diplomatic, scientific and innovation leader can
help other countries live up to theirs.
How to start the conversation
The science-science dialogue, from which this white paper originates, has sparked an exchange
and learning across academic disciplines. Participants noted a need to broaden this conversation
to include non-experts: citizens as well as civil servants and environmental non-governmental
organizations. Public research and engagement activities are already ongoing in Germany,
26
and
the UK
27
and numerous organizations have called and are planning for public dialogues within and
beyond national boundaries.
28
In this same spirit of inclusion and participation that we believe is
fundamental to enable democratic decisions, we recommend establishing a publicly supported
dialogue and deliberative process. At this early stage, such a dialogue would allow citizens, civil
society organizations and civil servants in Switzerland to become aware of the issue and to better
understand the ethical, societal, ecological, economic and technological dimensions of climate
engineering and to actively contribute to their governance.
We see the Federal Office for the Environment in an excellent position to further explore the issue,
for instance by means of a concern assessment that elicits views and concerns of various
stakeholder groups and a representative sample of the Swiss population in order to assess
concerns and the general level of understanding of climate engineering. On the basis of such an
assessment, proactive public engagement processes could be developed. A Swiss citizen jury
could be one possible element of such a public engagement process. Another one could be an
information platform that enables compilation and dissemination of information and enables
dialogue. In our view, it will be crucial that the conversation is opened up to address not only the
scientific or technological dimensions, but that social concerns, ethical considerations, as well as
environmental and economic issues also receive the attention they deserve.
25
The carbon budget allocated to Switzerland for 2 °C in the period 2050 to 2100 is cumulatively 280 million tCO2-eq,
meaning that it has to remove 280 million tons of CO2 before the end of the century in addition to removing the
equivalents of any residual emissions it may still produce during that period [see du Pont, Y. R., Jeffery, M. L., Gütschow,
J., Rogelj, J., Christoff, P., & Meinshausen, M. (2017): Equitable mitigation to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. Nature
Climate Change, 7(1), 38-43].
26
An ongoing DFG funded priority programme (SPP 1689) undertakes an interdisciplinary assessment of Climate
Engineering.
27
The Natural Environment Research Council of the UK as the latest element in a sequence of public research
programs on this issue is launching a concerted research program on carbon removal.
28
The Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag identified a great need for public engagement on
climate engineering in its 2014 study. The Forum for Climate Engineering Assessments based in Washington DC aims to
broaden the debate in the US, while the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative (SRMGI) aims to enable
developing countries to participate in the global discourse.
Contact:
Lead author: Matthias Honegger (matthias.honegger@iass-potsdam.de)
Contributing lead authors: Steffen Münch, Anette Hirsch, Christoph Beuttler, Tom Peter
Project manager: Christoph Beuttler (christoph.beuttler@risiko-dialog.ch)
Stiftung Risiko-Dialog St.Gallen
Technoparkstrasse 2
CH - 8406 Winterthur
Tel: +41 (0) 52 551 10 01
Email: info@risiko-dialog.ch
... The research should support public dialogue on the relative costs and risks of using or not using various types of climate engineering (Honegger et al. 2017;Buck, Geden, Sugiyama and Corry 2020). The goal should be to both strengthen the Paris Agreement, and develop a supplementary, overshoot risk management plan. ...
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Although the 2015 Paris Agreement climate targets seem certain to be missed, only a few experts are questioning the adequacy of the current approach to limiting climate change and suggesting that additional approaches are needed to avoid unacceptable catastrophes. This article posits that selective science communication and unrealistically optimistic assumptions are obscuring the reality that greenhouse gas emissions reduction and carbon dioxide removal will not prevent climate change in the 21st Century. It also explains how overly pessimistic and speculative criticisms are behind opposition to considering potential climate cooling interventions as a complementary approach for mitigating dangerous warming. There is little evidence supporting assertions that: current greenhouse gas emissions reduction and removal methods can and will be ramped up in time to prevent dangerous climate change; overshoot of Paris Agreement targets will be temporary; net zero emissions will produce a safe, stable climate; the impacts of overshoot can be managed and reversed; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change models and assessments capture the full scope of prospective disastrous impacts; and the risks of climate interventions are greater than the risks of inaction. These largely unsupported assumptions distort risk assessments and discount the urgent need to develop a viable mitigation strategy. Owing to political pressures, many critical scientific concerns are ignored or preemptively dismissed in international negotiations. As a result, the present and growing crisis and the level of effort and time that will be required to control and rebalance the climate are severely underestimated. The paper concludes by outlining the key elements of a realistic policy approach that would augment current efforts to constrain dangerous warming by supplementing current mitigation approaches with climate cooling interventions.
... An alternative approach is needed that explicitly embraces deep uncertainty, and in which modelling exists in an iterative exchange with policy development (Workman et al., 2020). The research should encourage public dialogue on the relative costs and risks of using or not using various types of climate engineering (Buck et al., 2020;Honegger et al., 2017;Lawrence et al., 2018;Pasztor, 2021) and support both strengthening the Paris Agreement, and the development of a supplementary, overshoot risk management plan. ...
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The Paris targets are based on assumptions that a global temperature increase of 1.5°C - 2°C above preindustrial levels will be safe, and that the climate can be stabilized at these higher temperatures. However, global average temperatures are already measurably impacting the Earth’s systems at 1.2°C above preindustrial levels. Many human and environmental systems cannot adapt to higher temperatures, which may exceed critical tipping points in physical climate and ecological systems. Compounding these risks is the likelihood that the international 2°C limit will be overshot due to political obstacles and systemic inertia from existing greenhouse gases, warming oceans, and the decades required to replace existing infrastructure. Moreover, the Earth energy imbalance may have to be reduced to approximately zero to stabilize the global climate (i.e., CO2 concentrations lowered to around 350 ppm.) Most IPCC mitigation scenarios assume that climate targets will be temporarily overshot, and require large-scale carbon dioxide removal [CDR] to subsequently lower temperatures. However, many CDR methods may not be politically and/or technologically feasible, and they will act too slowly to prevent dangerous overshoot. These issues raise serious doubts about the ability of current mitigation polices to ensure safe outcomes. They also indicate the need to investigate whether rapid climate cooling measures may be required to reduce the risks associated with high temperatures during the long time it will take to decarbonize the global economy and stabilize the climate. Given the uncertainty of future mitigation success, and the potentially existential costs of failure, there is now an urgent need to examine whether or not current efforts are credible, and if not, what mitigation measures will be required to prevent dangerous overshoot and ensure a safe, stable climate. In order to develop a feasible mitigation strategy, it will be necessary to prioritize research both on climate overshoot risks, and on the relative effectiveness, risks, costs and timelines of potential mitigation and adaptation approaches. Since large scale climate interventions will be needed to prevent dangerous global warming, all plausible options need to be investigated, including carbon dioxide removal methods and technologies for rapidly cooling global temperatures. This research is a prerequisite for evaluating the comparative benefits, costs and risks of using, or not using, various forms of mitigation and adaptation, and then developing a realistic overshoot risk management plan.
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Non-Technical Summary Climate stabilization requires scaling-up technologies to capture and store carbon. Carbon removal could be very profitable, and some of the agents best placed to benefit are ‘carbon majors’, i.e. fossil fuel companies. We argue that in ordinary circumstances only agents without significant historical climate responsibilities would be entitled to the full benefits from carbon removal. Under non-ideal conditions, carbon majors might be entitled to benefit, provided that no other agent could remove similar quantities of carbon at similar costs. This burden of proof is only likely to be met in countries with poor governance capacities. Technical Summary Climate stabilization requires scaling up technologies to capture and store carbon. Some of the agents best placed to profit from carbon removal are ‘carbon majors’, especially fossil fuel companies. Yet incentivizing carbon majors to undertake carbon removal poses an ethical dilemma: carbon majors have made significant historical contributions to climate change and have significantly benefitted from such contributions without being made to compensate for resulting climate harm. This is why it seems unfair to reward them with additional economic benefits. However, carbon majors possess the technological skills and infrastructure to upscale carbon removal efficiently. We argue that in ordinary circumstances, only agents without significant climate responsibilities would be morally entitled to fully benefit from carbon removal. Yet under non-ideal conditions, it might be permissible to reward carbon majors if no other agent were capable of removing as much carbon at similar costs and on similar timeframes. We believe this argument faces an imposing burden of proof that is only likely to be met in countries with poor governance capacities. In more favorable circumstances, including those of most OECD countries, rewarding carbon majors without having them pay for their historical climate responsibilities remains impermissible. Social Media Summary Rewarding carbon majors to undertake carbon dioxide removal is unjust due to their historical climate responsibilities. Where possible, governments should empower other agents to remove CO 2 .
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Wird Deutschland bis zum Jahr 2050 klimaneutral oder nicht doch eher treibhausgasneutral beziehungsweise CO2-neutral sein? Eines ist klar: Wir wollen den Klimawandel stoppen, haben uns dafür ein Ziel gesetzt und wollen es bis 2050 erreicht haben. Aber was genau eigentlich: Was hat sich Deutschland, was die Europäische Union und viele andere Länder zum Ziel gesetzt? Oder kurz gesagt: Was verbirgt sich eigentlich hinter dem Ziel Klimaneutralität? Diesen Fragen geht die von Perspectives Climate Research im Auftrag der dena erstellte Analyse „Klimaneutralität – ein Konzept mit weitreichenden Implikationen“ nach. Denn der genauere Blick zeigt: Auf die Details kommt es an.
Conference Paper
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International policy instruments that mobilize practices and technologies for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and reliably storing it (Carbon Dioxide Removal, CDR) are currently non-existent despite most mitigation pathways for 2°C or 1.5°C relying on implementation of CDR at scale. Feasibility of CDR at large-scale is highly uncertain due to high costs and political challenges. Practical experience is necessary for better understanding feasibility and driving down costs. For cost-effective global CDR deployment, one or several policy instruments would need to mobilize international financial flows and ensure that activities generate sustainable development benefits. The sustainable development mechanism established in Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement could be a good basis for supporting deployment if it includes a robust approach to evaluating sustainable development impacts, potentially by building on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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The Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlight the inextricably linked need for tackling climate change alongside-and as an element of-sustainable development (SD). Reaching the Paris Agreement's targets requires large-scale removal of CO2 by Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs). Technologies currently proposed to do this, are expected to carry significant implications toward the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which provide the context for global action up to 2030. Serious deployment of NETS cannot be expected in the absence of policy instruments that create financial incentives covering costs associated with the service of removing and storing CO2. NETs are, however, controversial and even when financially feasible, might face limited acceptance and political barriers. Policy instruments can thus only be successful if negative impacts on the achievement of the SDGs are minimized, positive impacts are maximised, and resulting CO2 removals are reliably quantified and accounted for. Under the Paris Agreement, market mechanisms could provide for such a framework in a globally coordinated and cost-efficient manner. A robust understanding of SDG implications of various types of NETs within the specific local circumstances of potential deployment could help navigate trade-offs and avoid adverse outcomes leading to public opposition or even policy reversals. First explorations of potential SDG implications of NET are being undertaken. Developing a full assessment framework for judging positive and negative implications of NETs on the SDGs might require more: A thought-process between technology developers, stakeholders and representatives to UN organizations and civil society organizations concerned with particular SDGs.
have shown that for 1.5 °C net zero carbon emissions worldwide ought to be achieved between 2045 and 2060. See Rogelj
  • Rogelj
See the graph on the following page. Besides the Paris Agreement stating the balance is to be achieved "in the second half of the century", Rogelj et al. (2015) have shown that for 1.5 °C net zero carbon emissions worldwide ought to be achieved between 2045 and 2060. See Rogelj, J., Luderer, G., Pietzcker, R. C., Kriegler, E., Schaeffer, M., Krey, V., & Riahi, K. (2015). Energy system transformations for limiting end-of-century warming to below 1.5 °C. Nature Climate Change, 5(6), 519-527. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2572
World Energy Outlook 2016 -Executive Summary
International Energy Agency. (2016). World Energy Outlook 2016 -Executive Summary. Paris, France: OECD/IEA. Retrieved from https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/WorldEnergyOutlook2016ExecutiveSummaryEnglish.pdf
Contact: Lead author: Matthias Honegger (matthias.honegger@iass-potsdam.de) Contributing lead authors
  • J Rogelj
  • M Den Elzen
  • N Höhne
  • T Fransen
  • H Fekete
  • H Winkler
  • R Schaeffer
  • F Sha
  • K Riahi
  • M Meinshausen
Rogelj, J., Den Elzen, M., Höhne, N., Fransen, T., Fekete, H., Winkler, H., Schaeffer, R., Sha, F., Riahi, K. & Meinshausen, M. (2016). Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 C. Nature, 534 (7609), 631-639. Contact: Lead author: Matthias Honegger (matthias.honegger@iass-potsdam.de) Contributing lead authors: Steffen Münch, Anette Hirsch, Christoph Beuttler, Tom Peter Project manager: Christoph Beuttler (christoph.beuttler@risiko-dialog.ch)
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  • Stiftung Risiko-Dialog St
Stiftung Risiko-Dialog St.Gallen Technoparkstrasse 2 CH -8406 Winterthur Tel: +41 (0) 52 551 10 01 Email: info@risiko-dialog.ch