Download REPORT ON THE DECC/RCUK GREENHOUSE GAS REMOVAL

REPORT ON THE DECC/RCUK GREENHOUSE GAS REMOVAL (GGR) CLIMATE
ENGINEERING WORKSHOP held in London 26 APRIL 2016.
By Paul Rouse (Faculty of Social Human and Mathematical Sciences, University of
Southampton)
Introduction
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council (EPSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Science and
Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC),
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Department of
Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Met Office invited applications to attend a joint
workshop with a view to:

identifying key research questions in GGR in the remits of the organising bodies;
and,

defining the scope of a potential joint research programme linking together key
research areas to deliver integrated interdisciplinary approach.
This report gives a brief overview of climate engineering and GGR, outlines the fruits of the
workshop and what may happen next. The workshop programme is at Annex 1.
Approximately 70 applicants were selected from those who applied, including physical,
natural and social scientists and individuals from the business, policy and performing arts
communities. By far the largest group were the natural scientists. Only six social scientists
were present, including myself. This natural science ‘top heaviness’ made it challenging to
meet the stated objective of ‘focussing on interdisciplinary engagement and discussion
around how developed and developing countries might achieve large-scale, net removal of
greenhouse
gases
from
the
atmosphere,
considering
the
feasibility
(technical,
environmental, socio-economic and legal) of specific approaches and associated research
needs.’
The meeting was held under Chatham House rules.
Background
Why me?
I am an ESRC DTC PhD student working on the governance of one of the two broad
categories of climate engineering technology, Solar Radiation Management (SRM). This
workshop focused on the other key group of climate engineering technologies, GGR. Given
my work is on SRM, and stratospheric aerosol injection SRM specifically I am not expert in
GGR, but have a good understanding of many of the generic climate engineering agenda
and I read some GGR literature as part of my studies. I previously headed environment,
energy and food research at the ESRC. So, whilst a student I have considerable experience
of such workshops.
What is climate engineering?
Whilst definitions and meanings of climate engineering, perhaps more commonly known as
geoengineering, remain fluid (Bellamy et al., 2013) a definition provided by the Royal Society
in its 2009 report ‘Geoengineering the climate - science, governance and uncertianty’,
chaired by the University of Southampton’s Professor John Shepherd (Shepherd, 2009) has
generally been accepted. This states that geoengineering is ‘the deliberate large-scale
intervention in the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global warming’ (Royal
Society 2009).
Climate engineering interventions are framed as human engineering solutions to either
remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere or oceans, Greenhouse Gas Removal
(GGR), or to reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the planet’s surface, (SRM)
(Lempert and Prosnitz, 2011). Potential approaches to SRM include the injection of reflective
aerosols into the stratosphere, the planting of reflective crops, cloud whitening, enhancing
urban surfaces’ albedo and even the installation of mirrors in geo-stationary orbit.
Suggested possible GGR techniques for removing multiple giga tons per annum of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases include: direct air capture with carbon capture and
storage; enhanced weathering and other mineralised storage, on land and in the ocean;
ocean fertilisation to increase carbon drawdown; changes to land management, including
afforestation and re-forestation; carbon sequestration in soils, including techniques such as
biochar; bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS); and, building with biomass.
GGR operates with the objective of global scale effects and should not be confused with
combustion or flue carbon capture and storage, also known as CCS, which operates on
smaller scales at point of source.
Why GGR
Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Solar Radiation Management is currently considered the
most tractable of the potential climate engineering approaches, and may be the ‘first mover
technology’ (Bellamy et al., 2013, Jones. et al., 2013, Keith, 2013). However, it is also
controversial and highly contested (this is my area of research, I would be very happy to
discuss it further). RCUK has dipped its toes into SRM research. However, they found the
water rather hot when the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE)
project attracted considerable attention (Stilgoe, 2015). Since the SPICE project RCUK has
concentrated on SRM governance and been less keen to invest in empirical SRM research.
GGR is however commonly thought to be less contentious and more publicly acceptable. It
may also provide some of the more interesting scientific challenges for research than SRM,
in which there are probably fewer fundamental science questions.
Do we need GGR? Paris, UK emission target scenarios.
The immediate deployment of any form of Earth system scale intervention, if the technology
became available, is not currently proposed by any engaged in the debate. However, given
the suggestions that GGR is likely to be an important contributor to the future mix of climate
change adaptation and mitigation it becomes clearer why RCUK and DECC might be
interested in funding a GGR research programme.
To date globally combined measures to cut GHG have had no meaningful effect. Despite the
1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) binding commitment to
‘stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to a level that would prevent
dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’ (UN, 1992), total
anthropogenic GHG emissions have continued to increase annually and there have been
larger absolute increases between 2000 and 2010, aside from a small reduction in 2008
during the financial crisis. At the Beginning of 2016 there were 402.5 parts per million of
carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere, an increase of 2.2% (or 8.7ppm) in the past four
years alone (Keeling et al., 2016).
The challenges that reducing emissions bring does not justify the use of climate engineering.
However, it has led the IPCC to include climate engineering, and GGR in particular, into their
climate scenarios where there is an overshoot in emissions targets beyond the 2°C (page 16
(IPCC, 2014). These scenarios include assumptions about the feasibility of and scale at
which GHG can be removed. These assumptions are underpinned by limited evidence,
evidence that a new research programme might help provide.
The UK’s Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) also recognised that GGR
would need to feature in the effort to keeping the global temperature rise to below 2C by the
end of this century. A DECC-commissioned study (McGlashan et al., 2010) into the potential
for negative emissions in the UK concluded:
“It seems increasingly likely that CO2 emissions will overshoot the limit on the cumulative
total needed to limit a global temperature rise to below 2C above pre-industrial levels. It may
therefore become necessary to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.”
In 2015 a UK Climate Change Committee report outlining the scientific context for the UK’s
fifth carbon budget described GGR and BECCS in particular as a “sensible way to maximise
emissions reduction” (Gummer et al., 2015).
However, with current knowledge it is difficult to deliver the required GGR. The UK
collaborative Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change study (AVOID 2010) projected a middle
estimated BECCS, using only domestically-sourced biomass had the potential to remove just
under 50m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year (MtCO2e) by 2030 (AVOID, 2016).
This equates to 10% of the UK’s current emissions. However, it would take 11 years to
scale-up BECCS and the 10% figure assumes that all coal plants in the UK are replaced with
BECCS and that 90% of the CO2 released in combustion can be captured and sequestered.
It also assumes that biomass plants run at a similar efficiency to coal power plants (around
40%) (Evans, 2016). These assumptions would require large scale shifts in current industrial
and energy policy and high cost retrofit to flues and stacks.
Konadu et al looked in detail at how much extra land would be needed for bioenergy in each
of the scenarios outlined in DECC’s 2011 Carbon Plan and concluded GGR equivalent to
10% of the UK’s current emissions would require that 28% of the land currently used to grow
food in the UK be given over to growing energy crops by 2050 rasing significant questions
about food supply, security and price as well as land use management (Konadu et al., 2015).
The workshop
The workshop included minimal input from the organisers, leaving time for discussions within
eight predefined groups, the membership of which changed between the two discussions.
These groups comprised people from a mix of backgrounds leaving representatives from
other than the natural and physical scientists spread thinly across the groups.
In broad terms the groups were asked to suggest what research was required to provide the
new, integrated knowledge needed to assess whether GGR might, in addition to
conventional mitigation, make a feasible and cost-effective contribution to avoiding
dangerous climate change and help to meet the commitments of the Paris Agreement.
Carbon dioxide storage was specifically excluded from the discussion any potential future
programme.
The express hope of the agencies was that any future investment would use a sophisticated
interdisciplinary approach that brings together all the available evidence from across the
different sciences for both national climate and energy policies to determine which
techniques are possible and at what scale. Specifically the expectation is that this
interdisciplinary approach would include environmental scientists, engineers, agriculturalists,
social scientists, economists, arts and humanities researchers and both academia and the
private sector.
The day was divided into two topics with reporting back from the groups.
Discussion A
Discussion to develop group consensus on:
 Which technique(s) offer the most potential in terms of their scientific, economic, political
and technological feasibility and expediency in achieving removal of greenhouse gases
from the atmosphere at a climatically-significant scale in 30-50 years’ time?
 What are the most important knowledge gaps (weakest links) relating to the technical
effectiveness of the identified techniques?
Discussion B
Four technique-based groups:

What are the wider feasibility issues (environmental and socio-economic) of the
techniques under consideration?

Do these differ between ‘developing’ and ‘’developed’ countries?

How can the knowledge gaps identified in the morning session and here best be
addressed by targeted research?
Four cross-cutting groups:

What criteria are most appropriate to assess comparability of different
techniques?

Do different considerations apply for ‘developing’ and ‘developed countries?

What are the key cross-cutting issues that can best be addressed by targeted
research?
Discussion outcomes
As might be expected when 70 interested parties come together many of the groups chose
not to answer the specific questions in favour of discussing a more complex agenda that
they believed were more important at this stage in the GGR research process. The
overwhelming impression from the feedback sessions was that economic, social, political
and policy research would be critical to inform and underpin any empirical science and
engineering research. With a social technical systems approach driving this.
Whilst the convener was keen to generate a list of technologies to pursue, this did not
capture the interest of the group. The suggested agenda are therefore a little disconnected
and confused. The agencies will no doubt have some difficulty designing a coherent
research programme out of the group’s proposals, if they choose to follow their
recommendations.
Key recommendations discussion A
This discussion was expected to focus on choosing likely techniques and identifying
challenges to delivery. The groups suggested the following research issues. Those in bold
were proposed by all or most groups
Use a STS approach to frame polycentric messiness of affected and interested parties
with a view to exploring uncertainty.
What co-benefits might be possible? Can co-benefits outweigh the deployment
costs?
Governance, including social acceptability, resolve broad political questions before
technology development.
How to deliver food security? Legitimising and securing acceptability of replacing
food crops with GGR.
Understand soil-systems in more detail, less is known about those than how to grow bio
crops. In the longer term soil ‘health’ will be critical.
The role of various actors – e.g. how might cities engage?
The research programme should focus on an agenda that would inform which
technologise/approaches to GGR might be most appropriate, not on identifying
winners now.
Focus on carbon dioxide removal first rather than methane (unless there is rapid
permafrost melt releasing large quantities of methane).
Understand economic, social, technical and environmental scalability. What are the
effects of upscaling on these?
Lifecycle analysis of GGR techniques. The full cost of activities, including the costs of
policy implementation on non GGR activity.
Explore who might pay and why - DECC/the state, InnovateUK or business etc.? How to
move from small scale investment to global commercial activity (if it is to be commercial).
Understand where and how by-products might be stably stored/used?
Focus on afforestation, reforestation and soil improvement. How to manage land and free it
up from current use to forestry?
Understand effects and impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity.
How might GGR and BECCS affect the climate?
Key recommendations discussion B
This discussion was expected to focus on the challenges of the proposed techniques and
identifying cross cutting issues about their development and deployment. The groups
suggested the following research issues. Those in bold were proposed by all or most groups
Identifying co-benefits of GGR.
How can any identified co-benefits help deliver take off? E.g. if air can be scrubbed
for carbon dioxide and other materials of value, what might the innovation path look
like?
Creating narratives to describe plausible routes to GGR.
Would GGR be beneficial to economic development in the developing world? How might is
be facilitated?
What incentives on agriculture will increase GGR cropping?
What would be the financial, social and policy costs of land use change?
Direct Air Capture (DAC) requires a better understanding of energy exchanges at scale, the
role of water, vapour containment and what a DAC infrastructure might look like.
Enhanced weathering requires lab and field piloting and a better understanding of
social acceptability. Insights into where minerals are required for best effect, how to
scale up and accelerate weathering processes.
Can enhanced weathering deliver co-benefits to soil quality?
How to grow crops to maximise carbon capture and lock in?
Might GGR be a route to a ‘good Anthropocene’?
How can GGR delivery be monitored? How will we know how much is captured and stored
safely rather than recycled? How is the rebound effect managed? Who will regulate?
How sustainable and resilient will technologies be? Will resource bounding drive reductions
in GGR in economic downturn?
Summary
Constructing a programme of research from the outcomes of the workshop will be
interesting. The clear preference of the group was to focus on co-benefits and broad social
and economic agenda whilst conducting some empirical work, with BECCS the main focus
of that. It is interesting that all groups focused on social agenda given how few social
scientists were present. In the context of other technologies such as GMO, nanotech,
synthetic biology, SRM and the SPICE project in particular, this maybe a small success story
for the STS academy.
The nature and funding for a future programme.
NERC are leading the process. Whilst they have £5m available to invest in a GGR
programme, they are not bound by this workshop to fund one. They may, for example, use
the workshop outputs to describe potential research routes of interest, without committing
funds. Given the nature of the preferred research options do not align completely with
NERC’s remit any future programme would probably require addition funds from other
agencies.
The EPSRC have indicated they are minded to contribute in the order of £2M; however, this
is not a confirmed position.
The ESRC, clearly an appropriate funder for much of the suggested programme, played an
extremely low key role in the workshop. It is public knowledge that ESRC currently has very
little free money to fund new directive mode research.
DECC staff were engaged and proactive during the workshop. Although they have not
indicated any funding, nor whether they are minded to contribute I took away an impression
that they may contribute.
The role of the other agencies is unknown. If I were to hazard a guess, drawing from my
experience of constructing similar multi agency and RCUK programmes a new directive
interdisciplinary call with in the order of perhaps £9m might be forthcoming within the next
six months.
Participation in the workshop was not a pre-condition for subsequent funding, which will be
based on open competition for support through any programme that might be developed in
this topic area. So, keep your eyes open for a future call…..
Paul Rouse
ESRC DTC Student (Politics and International Relations)
Contact: [email protected]
Annex 1
Workshop on Greenhouse Gas Removal from the Atmosphere
Thursday 28 April 2016 10.00-16.00
Venue: Wesley Hotel and Conference Centre, 81-103 Euston Street, London NW1 2EZ. Nearest
tube stations: Euston Square, Euston and Warren Street.
Workshop Agenda
From 09.30
10.00
10.10
10.20
10.30
11.00
Registration
Welcome. Introduction to proposed programme. Ned Garnett, NERC
Overview of research issues relating to greenhouse gas removal. Phil Williamson,
NERC/UEA
DECC perspective. Cathy Johnson, DECC
Tea/coffee
Breakout session #1
i) Table introductions
ii) Discussion to develop group consensus on the following topics:
 Which technique(s) offer the most potential in terms of their scientific, economic,
political and technological feasibility and expediency in achieving removal of
greenhouse gases from the atmosphere at a climatically-significant scale in 30-50
years’ time?
 What are the most important knowledge gaps (weakest links) relating to the
technical effectiveness of the identified techniques?
12.15
12.45
13.45
Group reports from session #1
Lunch
Participants signup for afternoon break-out groups
Breakout session #2
i) Table introductions
ii) Discussion to develop group consensus on the following topics:
 For technique-based groups:
o
What are the wider feasibility issues (environmental and socio-economic) of
the techniques under consideration?
o
Do these differ between ‘developing’ and ‘’developed’ countries?
o
How can the knowledge gaps identified in the morning session and here best
be addressed by targeted research?
 For cross-cutting groups:
o
What criteria are most appropriate to assess comparability of different
techniques?
o
Do different considerations apply for ‘developing’ and ‘developed countries?
o
What are the key cross-cutting issues that can best be addressed by targeted
research?
14.45
Tea/coffee
15.15
Group reports from session #2
15.45
Concluding remarks. David Addison, Virgin Challenge
16.00
Close of meeting
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