Robert Hoglund @roberthoglund.bsky.social is the voice of rationality for carbon dioxide removal. He makes the case for CDR needing a narrative shift away from speed and scale, toward prove and learn. Today the vital need is to trust and understand CDR.
carboncurve.substack.com/p/why-carbon...
NEW ARTICLE: There is a big shift happening in corporate sustainability that raises major new questions.
1️⃣ Reporting is being split into two categories:
- Emissions inventories tied to a company's activities
- Corporate interventions beyond value chain (carbon credits, PPAs, EACs, etc).
But companies should be incentivized to do whatever is most effective at mitigating climate change regardless if it counts towards their targets or not.
Ambition should be measured by what a company does to solve the problem, not by whether its accounting adds up to zero.
This shows that target fulfillment is the wrong measure of corporate climate ambition.
We should allow those that want to make a net zero claim to do so if they use high quality interventions like durable CDR, EACs, PPAs etc.
3️⃣ But this debate misses that most companies' net zero targets are conditional on external change regardless of rules of what counts. And, that much of what's most effective, policy advocacy, R&D, system change, won't count towards targets under any paradigm.
2️⃣ This means we need to rethink what net zero target fulfillment means. Which interventions, if any, should count toward targets?
There's a full spectrum of positions on this as described in the article From permissive, to strict, to not at all. There's objective answer, it's a political compromise
NEW ARTICLE: There is a big shift happening in corporate sustainability that raises major new questions.
1️⃣ Reporting is being split into two categories:
- Emissions inventories tied to a company's activities
- Corporate interventions beyond value chain (carbon credits, PPAs, EACs, etc).
We need a new lens on corporate net zero.
Today they mix what companies can control with what they depend on.
This leads to unachievable targets, inhibits certain types of action and obscures the role of policy and system change.
1/5
In a new article I propose a lens for aligning targets, actions, and claims with what companies control and what they depend on.
www.milkywire.com/articles/a-n...
How large a share of emission reductions is conditional differs a lot between sectors and business models.
Importantly, declaring emissions conditional increases the obligation to fund and push for the solutions that resolve those conditions.
4/5
In addition to reducing the emissions they have agency over, companies should help enable the world their targets require, both through funding climate solutions that unblocks global net zero, and their own advocacy.
3/5
In reality, net zero targets are conditional. Companies should specify what is needed for their target achievement. What they can do, and what external change they depend on.
2/5
We need a new lens on corporate net zero.
Today they mix what companies can control with what they depend on.
This leads to unachievable targets, inhibits certain types of action and obscures the role of policy and system change.
1/5
Slow reductions=LESS CDR
I often see the argument that the more emissions remain the more CDR is needed. Example below
But it's the opposite! If a lot of emissions remain it means there wasn't enough political will & capital to address them. That will & capital won't magically appear for CDR instead
This is an illustration of what @glenpeters.bsky.social means when he said that CDR does not "exist outside the toolbox".
(Screenshot from Allied offsets new brief on cost of CDR. Not trying to pick on them, it's an informative brief, and I would say most people make this assumption. )
Slow reductions=LESS CDR
I often see the argument that the more emissions remain the more CDR is needed. Example below
But it's the opposite! If a lot of emissions remain it means there wasn't enough political will & capital to address them. That will & capital won't magically appear for CDR instead
Most-viewed Guardian articles last night. Editors shouldn’t think that the public doesn’t want to know more about climate change.
Or about ocean science 🌊!
Read the article about our paper: www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Comparing different alternatives is tricky since they rest on so many assumptions. Electrofuels versus using CDR to offset fossil fuel oil depends on the cost of electricity, fossil fuels and CDR. The ISO chart below compares the interaction between them.
Of course this first requires that we accept permanent CDR as a solution for a limited amount of emissions.
Today, CDR is not an option in most policy frameworks and roadmaps. This should change. We should be agnostic about which solutions are used to reach net zero. Otherwise, we risk making the transition slower, more expensive, and less politically feasible.
NEW ANALYSIS: What role will CDR play for shipping?
Biofuels, onboard CCS, and durable CDR are likely to be cheapest for the majority of emissions. But many roadmaps center around electrofuels, despite them looking like the most expensive alternative, as with aviation.
Cement requiring CCS, is still difficult to address. I see the wording "hard-to-abate" refering to activities that need forcing policy creating a level playing field. A subset of hard-to-abate is also CDR-optimal. 4/5
This graph compares economic & energetic needs of aviation and cement mitigation, showing cement is not hard to abate, but aviation is.
However, I prefer "CDR-optimal" instead of hard to abate here. 3/5
As long as CDR quality criteria are set high, the market will be best at figuring out which emissions are optimal to deal with using CDR. 2/5
All emission reductions more expensive than DACCS are hard to abate.
That's the proposed definition in this new paper. I agree, and have been arguing for a long time that there is NO need to create a special list of residual emissions... 1/5
The CO2 removal industry is about to hit a milestone: 1 million tons of durable removals. But things are moving too slowly to reach gigaton scale on time. At Carbon Unbound summit last week things felt precarious. One person told me without more buyers the industry is in a “house of delusion.”
