“Negative Emissions”:
A Challenge for Climate Policy
Oliver Geden and Stefan Schäfer
The objective of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to well
below 2 degrees
Celsius, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5
degrees. The Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes that these targets
cannot be
reached through conventional mitigation measures alone. The IPCC assumes
that
in addition to reducing emissions, technologies for removing greenhouse
gases from
the atmosphere will become indispensable. The preferred technology option
combines
increased use of bio-energy with the capture and storage of carbon dioxide.
To date,
climate policy has largely ignored the necessity for “negative emissions”
to achieve
the temperature targets set out in the Paris Agreement. Discussions on the
underlying
model assumptions, potentials and risks of imaginable technological
options, as well
as their political implications, are only just beginning. It would be wise
for the EU and
Germany to proactively shape this debate and increase funding for research
and devel-
opment. If the Paris climate objectives are upheld, climate policy pioneers
will soon be
facing calls to set emission-reduction targets of much more than 100
percent – a notion
that today seems paradoxical, but may soon become reality.

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