Re: [geo] Report of Negative Emissions seminar

[Ronal W . Larson]

Greg and list:

Again I agree mostly with all you have below.   But I suggest a few 
more additions for this list to ponder:

1.   You provide below the middle two of four summary statements.  The first 
reads:

-   “Urgent need to reduce emissions. To limit warming to below 
1.5° or 2°C temperature rise we must stay within tight carbon budgets. There is 
roughly 200 GtCO2 left in the carbon budget for 1.5°C, meaning this is the 
maximum amount we can emit to the atmosphere and stay below a temperature rise 
of 1.5°C. For 2°C the remaining carbon budget is approx. 800 GtCO2. This means 
GHG emissions must be reduced to zero as fast as possible. Even a reduction of 
ten per cent of GHG emissions per year in energy sectors in developed countries 
would give us only a 33 per cent chance to stay below 2 degrees. This scale of 
ambition is not foreseen in any published mitigation scenarios, and highlights 
the EU target of 40 per cent emission reduction by 2030 as grossly inadequate. 
NGOs must re-assess what they are calling for in terms of emission reduction 
targets that could realistically achieve the 1.5° to 2°C limits.”

[RWL:  This strikes me as a strong rationale for the CDR/NET activities 
they otherwise disparage.  In other words, they are making no sense in the 
remainder of their piece.   
In particular, biochar and a few others are clearly mitigation, as they 
are carbon negative (more than arguably carbon neutral) energy providers.

2.  The fourth and final summary statement says:

-   “Redefine ‘negative emissions’. The term negative emissions is 
unclear and misleading, making it hard to distinguish between carbon removals 
from the atmosphere that restore land carbon stocks (such as ecosystem 
restoration) and geo-engineering technologies that remove carbon from the 
atmosphere and sequester it geologically, such as BECCs, enhanced weathering, 
direct air capture etc. The Paris Agreement refers to ‘removals by sinks’, 
which could be interpreted as sequestration and storage of carbon in plants, 
trees and soils, rather than geoengineering technologies, such as BECCS, which 
rely on geological storage.”

[RWL:  This failure to include biochar here (anywhere in their piece) 
is unfathomable.  I m sure that a majority of the five panelists knows the word 
“biochar”, which belies everything in this final summary paragraph.  Why (in 
the final sentence) they think that biochar (and other soil-oriented “NETs” 
should not be considered as “Geo” is beyond me.  On the other hand, I should 
probably be glad they didn’t use the term; no telling what they would have 
said.  I hope any of them reading this will explain their failure to talk about 
“biochar” - which I believe is both the largest and fastest-growing CDR/NeT 
approach today.

a few more inserts below.



> On Nov 14, 2016, at 12:46 PM, Greg Rau  wrote:
> 
> Report bullet points:
> "Urgent need to increase carbon sequestration in land and forests. With only 
> 200
> GtCO2 left until the global carbon budget for 1.5°C is blown, it is highly 
> likely that there
> will be a need to increase removals of CO2 from the atmosphere to limit 
> warming
> to 1.5°C or even 2°C. This could be done through halting deforestation and 
> forest
> degradation, restoring degraded forests, and reforesting previously 
> deforested land.
> These actions would go some way to restoring historically depleted land 
> carbon stocks."
> 
> GR Why isn't there also an urgent need to increase marine carbon 
> sequestration, which = 70% of the Earth's surface, half the annual C cycle, 
> and the vast majority of C stored on the Earth surface. Ocean C = 16 X land 
> biomass + soil C!? How do we manage atmospheric C by ignoring the ocean? 
[RWL:  And the five experts apparently also fail to understand that 
biomass produced in the ocean can be sequestered on land - which they are 
focussed on.
> 
> "Forests and land do not offset fossil fuel emissions. Plants, trees and 
> soils remove
> CO2 from the atmosphere, but this does not offset the release of CO2 when 
> fossil fuels
> are burnt. Increasing carbon sequestration in plants, trees and soils repays 
> the land
> carbon debt accumulated from historical land use change, but does not 
> compensate
> on-going emissions. To mitigate climate change we must reduce emissions from 
> the
> fossil fuel and the land sector, not offset one against the other."
> 
> GR - Forests and land do offset about 1/4 - 1/3 of fossil fuel emissions, as 
> does the ocean. Great if we can repay the land C debt (how big relative to 
> excess CO2?)
[RWL:  My answer, hoping that others will also respond, is that the 
“land C debt” is larger “relative to excess CO2”  (and ocean biomass can be a 
big part of the repayment)
> AND satisfy growing land based food, fiber and fuel production. Feasibility?
[RWL:   Absolutely.
> Otherwise how/why can 

Re: [geo] Report of Negative Emissions seminar

[Greg Rau]

Report bullet points:"Urgent need to increase carbon sequestration in land and 
forests. With only 200GtCO2 left until the global carbon budget for 1.5°C is 
blown, it is highly likely that therewill be a need to increase removals of CO2 
from the atmosphere to limit warmingto 1.5°C or even 2°C. This could be done 
through halting deforestation and forestdegradation, restoring degraded 
forests, and reforesting previously deforested land.These actions would go some 
way to restoring historically depleted land carbon stocks."
GR Why isn't there also an urgent need to increase marine carbon sequestration, 
which = 70% of the Earth's surface, half the annual C cycle, and the vast 
majority of C stored on the Earth surface. Ocean C = 16 X land biomass + soil 
C!? How do we manage atmospheric C by ignoring the ocean? 
"Forests and land do not offset fossil fuel emissions. Plants, trees and soils 
removeCO2 from the atmosphere, but this does not offset the release of CO2 when 
fossil fuelsare burnt. Increasing carbon sequestration in plants, trees and 
soils repays the landcarbon debt accumulated from historical land use change, 
but does not compensateon-going emissions. To mitigate climate change we must 
reduce emissions from thefossil fuel and the land sector, not offset one 
against the other."
GR - Forests and land do offset about 1/4 - 1/3 of fossil fuel emissions, as 
does the ocean. Great if we can repay the land C debt (how big relative to 
excess CO2?) AND satisfy growing land based food, fiber and fuel production. 
Feasibility? Otherwise how/why can we ignore C management potential and food, 
fiber and fuel production in the ocean?



 
  From: 'Motoko' via geoengineering 
 To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
 Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 11:03 AM
 Subject: [geo] Report of Negative Emissions seminar
   
Fern 
(2016): Report of the seminar 'Negative Emissions' facilitated by Fern. 
Brussels.   
http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/Negative%20emissions%20seminar.pdf  
This seminar held in May 2016 brought key scientists together with 
environmental, development and human rights NGOs to understand the Paris 
Agreement’s implications for forests and land use.     -- 
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[geo] Climate Engineering News Review for Week 47 of 2016

[CE News]

Dear Climate Engineering Group,

please find below our weekly climate engineering news review. You can find
daily updated climate engineering news on our news portal

www.climate-engineering.eu/news.html.

Thank you

The Climate Engineering Editors

 


Climate Engineering News Review for Week 47 of 2016


Upcoming Events and Deadlines

·
 24.-25.11.2016, Workshop: SPP 1689
Workshop on the 1.5°C Target and Climate Engineering

·

06.12.2016, Lecture: Geoengineering climate change: do two wrongs make a
right?, Newcastle / UK

·
 12.-16.12.2016,
AGU Fall Meeting; list of CE relevant papers
 here

·
 15.12.2016,
Lecture: Assessing and Reducing the Risks of Solar Geoengineering, Hamburg /
Germany

·  
06.01.2017, Presentation: An Economic Anatomy of Climate Management
Technologies and Policies, Chicago / USA

·
 28.02.2017, Call for Papers: Organizing and the
Anthropocene, Special Issue of 'Organization'

·   09.10.2017, Conference: Climate
Engineering Conference 2017 (CEC17), Berlin / Germany

 

Jobs

· (  no deadline) Jobs
at the Center for Carbon Removal

·
 25.11.2016 (deadline), Job:
Postdoctoral Scientist Position Biogeochemical Modelling

·   01.12.2016
(deadline), Job: Tenure-track in climate sciences at Georgia Institute of
Technology

·  
15.12.2016 (deadline), Job: Post-Doctoral Economics Fellow at the Keith
Group

·

31.12.2016 (deadline), Job: PhD opportunity: Geoengineering the Southern
Ocean? A transdisciplinary assessment

 

New Publications

· Lackner, Klaus S. (2016)
 : The promise of
negative emissions

 

Political Papers

· MCC (2016)
 : Betting on
negative emissions

· Fern (2016)
 : Report of the seminar 'Negative Emissions' facilitated by Fern

· Energy Technologies Institute (2016)
 : The evidence for deploying Bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) in
the UK

· Pasztorf, Janos; et al. (30.10.2016)
 : Briefing Paper on Climate Engineering

 

Selected Media Responses

· Geoengineering Monitor
 : Responses to: The Trouble with Negative Emissions

· The Ends Report
 : Biomass negative emissions technology
‘could be commercially viable’

· TU Delft
 : TU Delft students design new aircraft for last resort option of
geoengineering

· Climate Action Network
 : The Danger and Opportunities of 1.5°C for Smallholder
Agriculture

· FCEA Blog
 : Commentary: A
Response to “Five Solar Geoengineering Tropes That Have Outstayed Their
Welcome”

· Financial Times
 :
Scientists grapple with geoengineering plans

· Carbon Brief

[geo] Report of Negative Emissions seminar

['Motoko' via geoengineering]

Fern (2016): Report of the seminar 'Negative Emissions' facilitated by Fern.
Brussels. 

 

http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/Negative%20emissions%20seminar.pdf

 

This seminar held in May 2016 brought key scientists together with
environmental, development and human rights NGOs to understand the Paris
Agreement's implications for forests and land use.

 

 

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[geo] The evidence for deploying Bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) in the UK

[CE News]

Energy Technologies Institute (2016): The evidence for deploying Bioenergy
with CCS (BECCS) in the UK. With assistance of Geraldine Newton-Cross,
Dennis Gammer. Loughborough. Available online at
http://www.eti.co.uk/insights/the-evidence-for-deploying-bioenergy-with-ccs-
beccs-in-the-uk.

 

Bioenergy technologies when combined with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)
can deliver negative emissions (net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere)
whilst producing energy in the form of electricity, heat, gaseous and liquid
fuels.

Negative emissions provide important emissions 'headroom' as the UK
transitions towards a low-carbon energy system, since the additional
'breathing space' afforded by negative emissions reduces the need for rapid
emissions reductions in sectors such as heavy duty transport and aviation
which are more difficult and expensive to decarbonise. Evidence from ESME,
the ETI's peer-reviewed energy system modelling environment, suggests that
by the 2050s, BECCS could deliver c.-55 million tonnes of net negative
emissions per annum (approximately half our emissions target in 2050),
whilst meeting c.10% of the UK's future energy demand. This would reduce the
cost of meeting the UK's 2050 GHG emissions target by up to 1% of GDP.

 

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Re: [geo] Negative Emissions: Arrows in the Quiver, Life Preserver, and/or Moral Hazard?

[David Lewis]

Anderson could maintain his stance as a voice for realism while adding his 
voice to those calling for research into all forms of geoengineering.  He 
could compare the cost of reducing emissions to the current cost of 
removing them from the atmosphere, call for a vigorous program of further 
research, then state that it is still his opinion that civilization needs 
to urgently and fundamentally transform its social, economic, and political 
relations if it wants to continue to exist. 

 

> Moral: Do not ignore or downplay potentially useful actions, especially if 
> you have the time and resources to carefully evaluate them.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> *From:* Greg Rau 
> *To:* Geoengineering  
> *Sent:* Friday, November 11, 2016 4:50 PM
> *Subject:* [geo] Negative Emissions: Arrows in the Quiver, Life 
> Preserver, and/or Moral Hazard?
>
>
>
>
> -- 
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> .
>
>
> http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6313/714.1
>
>
> GR: Disclaimer - I was a co-signer. 
>

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