World will miss climate targets without introduction of large-scale negative emissions solutions by 2025

Global action to deliver negative emissions technologies is falling far short of what is required to address the climate crisis, warns a study by the newly formed Coalition for Negative Emissions.

The research states that to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as agreed in Paris in 2015, efforts to reduce emissions must be combined with annual negative emissions of up to 1.2 Gt by 2025, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Negative emissions must also scale up to significant volumes in the medium term, removing as much as 6-10 Gt of CO₂/y by 2050.

The study shows negative emissions solutions including bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air capture and storage (DACS), and natural climate solutions (NCS) such as afforestation, can each provide at least 1 Gt of sustainable negative emissions. In addition to achieving global climate targets, deploying these solutions at scale could create up to 10mn new jobs worldwide, claims the Coalition.

However, based on the current pipeline of projects, the report finds the level of negative emissions required by 2025 in the IPCC’s 1.5°C pathway will likely be missed by 80%. Investment in negative emissions solutions must also increase 30-fold times to meet the needs of the 1.5°C pathway. If there is no action until 2030, around 8 Gt of negative emissions debt will have been built-up, increasing the costs and disruption to society required to keep global warming within 1.5°C, warns the Coalition.

For more on negative emissions, see Petroleum Review’s forthcoming October 2021 issue.