What the IPCC Really Said About Carbon Dioxide Removal

about CDR in this report. Some heralded it as proof that CDR will in fact save us, so no need to look into anything else. Others claimed the IPCC had actually said quite the opposite, and I wondered, how could that be. It was the first time I can remember people having that diverse of views about what the IPCC report actually said. For all its inscrutability, the IPCC report

is generally not ambiguous about what the science says. So I read the report with a particular interest in all the places where CDR showed up and what the underlying data and research and the report actually said about it. Lucky for me, the smart folks over at the Center for International Environmental Law or CL had the same idea

and put together a brilliant report on this subject. Today, I'm joined by the architects of that report, Nikki Reisch, director of the Climate and Energy Program at CL and Carol Muffett, the organization's president and CEO. They walked me through a whole bunch of the discrepancies on carbon removal tech in this report and were able to actually answer the question what did the IPCC say about the potential of this tech that's coming up? Right after this quick break.

deceptive narratives about what the IPCC is saying. And nowhere has that been clearer than in lines taken out of the summary for policymakers on things like carbon capture and storage and the role for CDR, and you know, with

the SR one point five report. I found that to actually explain to people what the IPCC was really saying about these technologies, you actually had to go through the whole report and pull out, like here are all the cautionary notes that the IPCC had included around these technologies.

There were warning signs flashing everywhere if you read the whole report, But if you read not only the executive summary, sorry, the Summary for policy Makers, but the press releases characterizing that Summary for policy makers, you would have believed that the IPCC was doing nothing but seeing the praises of these technologies, when nothing could be further from the truth. And so that's why we sent out to analyze these documents.

And I'll say that part of the reason for the focus on the Summary for policy Makers is that it is the window into which the vast majority of the world views what the IPCC has examined and what it's found. And so our goal was to actually unpack what the IPCC is really saying about these technologies, to push back against those oversimplified and frankly false narratives that the IPCC

is saying. You know, CCS and CDR are the solutions to the climate crisis, because the IPCC really doesn't say that. I think the additional complication comes from the fact that, you know, the Summary for Policymakers is unique among the IPCC documents in being the one moment where politics really

does come into play. As states negotiate that summary line by line by line, and when you've got a thousand pages of text to work with, like, there is a lot of leeway in terms of word choice, in terms of emphasis in what goes into that summary, And this is part of what we were trying to expose, is that you know, the IPCC has these complex and extensive warnings on these technologies and the over reliance on them, but you don't get that in the Summary for policy Makers,

precisely because there was all this political pressure to tell a very different story.

the public and policymakers take away messages. And so we really examine some of the key political and economic assumptions that constrain the way the models represent what mitigation pathways

are available and what outcomes are possible. And so we go into unpacking some of that about the focus on and assumptions about economic growth that really exclude the possibility of reconceiving growth as something other than the inexorable accumulation of and use of resources, So that possibility is really written out of many of the underlying models. And the models also really have an approach to cost and portraying the cost of mitigation measures that don't capture the costs

of climate change itself or adaptation to climate change. So what you get is a really skewed picture of the least cost mitigation measures for a particular temperature target, and that bias towards avoiding near term costs really ends up skewing the models towards reliance on future speculative technologies rather than near term available mitigation measures.

keep warming below one point five degrees. And the OBBOCC warns in the clearest possible terms that going beyond one point five degrees, even temporarily, will result in irreversible losses

to ecosystems, to communities, to human lives. And you really don't see the recognition of that urgency, the recognition of the critical importance of not going beyond one point five degrees reflected in Working Group three, and I think that in a similar way, the Working Group two report really highlighted the critical importance of centering issues of social justice, of human rights, of centering issues of equity, including in

responses to the climate crisis. And you would think that that as well would frame the analysis of options that Working Group three was looking at, but in fact it doesn't. And you mentioned the point about constant I think one of the things that was really striking for us, even in the late stages of this report is Fig. Seven from the Working Group three report, which lays out in

really stark terms. I think that the difference between the promise of renewable energy and the reality of renewable energy and electrification and the potential of some of these technologies like carbon capture and storage and CDR. If you look at Fig. Seven, what you find is that there enormous near term emission reductions to be made at relatively low cost, some in fact, you know, at negative cost, which means, you know, the economy benefits from accelerating wind and solar

energy deployments. You could you could achieve more reductions from reducing methane emissions from oil and gas, and of course you could achieve even more if you stopped producing so much oil and gas in the first place. And then you compare that with the IPCC's own evaluation of the costs and potential of CCS and CCUS, and it's striking because the IPCC is saying here in graphic terms, literally, look, this stuff is extraordinary expensive and it has very limited potential.

And yet you know when you look at the report itself, you don't see that reflected in the analysis at all. In fact, the story that the some of it for policy appears to tell is one that really puts CCS and CDR at the forefront of solution.

harm that will result from overshooting one point five. So you would think, following on the heels of that report, that a report focused on mitigation strategies would center or at least focus heavily on those measures that would enable the world to avoid overshoot of one point five degrees. And the irreparable harm that the IPCC just showed would follow.

And yet we see a presentation of these modeled pathways side by side, so that in presenting the C one modeled pathways, those that involve no or low overshoot of one point five right alongside scenarios that model at temperature rise to catastrophic levels can be misread or would suggest that all options are on the table, that all those

pathways are somehow acceptable or conceivable policy options. And you referenced the chapter on demand side measures, which I think you know is a really important one to see in

this report. But we did notice similarly that many of the most new and radical and critically progressive thinking about reconceptualizing demand and the systemic change needed to actually reduce energy demand is not yet reflected in the modeling of mitigation pathways, in those integrated assessment models that really underlie the graphs and charts of projected pathways. And you know, there's a lag time always between new science and the

consensus science. That's sort of summarized here. But what we're also seeing is that the scientific studies that are produced are influenced by the government sources, the corporate entities, and other funders that really guide what research is done, and so there's a real gap and a need to ensure that research is being done to actually map and model what it would look like to implement some of these systemic changes, because there is a deep contradiction between the

IPCC's own recognition and multiple places in the report that economic growth, businesses usual economic growth and conceptions of it is one of the major drivers of emissions and is

a driver of this current crisis. So we need to reconceptualize growth, and yet the models are sort of prisoner to this fixed concept of growth continuing apace and even accelerating in the future, when if we want to tackle this crisis and avoid human catastrophe, we need to upend those assumptions and rethink the approach entirely.

for a long time. I think you see a heavy focus in a lot of this industry funded research on what can be done that allows business as usual while managing the problem, or appearing to manage the problem, and I think that is just a fundamental conflict. Importantly, much of that government support has also come from government agencies who have the promotion of fossil fuel production and use

as part of their agency mandate. And so I think the net consequence is you get this body of science that is funded by, supported by, and driven by the underlying agendas of the companies and government agencies that are funding it. And even with the best intentions of the researchers involved, I think the pressure is clear to produce

outcomes that are going to keep the money flowing. The net result is these modeled realities become our perception of the real reality, and modeled realities are pushing us towards the planet that is frankly unlivable.

they skew the outcomes. I think, you know, a critical reflection that may seem obvious, but I don't think is frequently acknowledged, is that, you know, models that incorporate various mitigation measures reflect outcomes based on what would happen if those mitigation measures worked in practice like they do in theory. They don't model what happens when they fail. So the models that build in, for example, reliance on CCS model what happens if CCS worked perfectly as designed in theory.

But in reality, what we've seen to date is that CCS projects have repeatedly over promised and under delivered on emissions reductions and haven't achieved those promised outcomes. The IPCC's report says explicitly that what's assumed is where it refers to CCS in modeled scenarios that assumes a capture a carbon dioxide capture rate of ninety to ninety five percent. That's a rate that just simply has not been consistently

achieved by any CCS projects to date. So when your model is reflecting a theoretical, hypothetical, imagine possible outcome, and real world policy choices are being based on that aspirational picture, we find ourselves in, you know, the very deep water and very you know world ablaze that we're currently living in.

I guess I'm curious what you guys think the chances are of these models being updated to actually reflect reality quickly enough for policymakers to actually find them useful.

I think the problem now is like the accumulated costs of those losses are accelerating every year, and they're only going to accelerate what it would take to integrate projections of those increased costs into the models. Frankly, I don't know, but I think part of my concern is that we have lost an extraordinary amount of time and waiting for more economic models to prove to us a reality that we see unfolding around us every day is maybe not

the strategy we need. What we need is to recognize that we have solutions right in front of us and crafting extraordinarily complex models to say that, well, maybe the solutions that we have, you know, aren't necessary because we could admit something that might work fifty years from now. It's just not the way to address this crisis.

center pieces of an effective strategy. And there are some models in the mix of the thousands that are reviewed here that of course do show just how quickly we could reduce emissions and how hopeful the world might be if we were to accelerate those policy measures that rely on proven mitigation strategies that are available now and not speculative ones that may or may not work at all, and that bring a host of other environmental and social

risks along with them. What's lacking is the political will not this scientific proof, and I think that's a real change in where we are. And the importance of these reports is that, yes, there's of course benefit in deeper and more extensive study and intensifying that the scientific study

of climate change, its dynamics, impacts, et cetera. But the science on the causes of climate change is crystal clear, and the known solutions that address those underlying drivers are evident and available, and so really we're not facing a gulf of scientific knowledge. We're facing a tremendous gulf and an absence of political will, and we need to unleash the stranglehold that vested interests have on our collective future and the policies that are going to keep it livable.

out of the atmosphere for some reason. That is really important because it means the impacts of each individual's CO two molecule are accumulative. It will keep contributing to warming as long as it's in the atmosphere, and that means that cutting emissions early, Cutting emissions now has a much higher impact than trying to cut emissions or pull carbon out of the atmosphere a decade from now. Or three

decades from now. One of the really striking things that comes out of the IPCC report is there's a place where the ibc C acknowledges that the divergence between the high ambition pathways and the low ambition pathways would become clear in terms of emissions, in terms of other sorts of pollutants within a few years, and by twenty thirty we would start to see that divergence in terms of what the levels of nw CO two accumulating in the

atmosphere are. That's an extraordinary thing to recognize, and I think our policy processes don't appreciate it enough. Literally, if we accelerate these responses, we'll start seeing the outcomes from that, the shifts in that really really rapidly. And by contrast, if we delay action, you know, we're not just fighting the emissions in twenty thirty, We're fighting the cumulative warming from all the missions between now and twenty thirty.

which steps are we going to take. All of them carry some cost, but some costs are born disproportionately by future generations but also by disadvantage populations today, and some

of those costs are absolutely necessary to bear. What we saw was a sort of battleground between states with really vested interest in maintaining a business as usual approach to their economies to energy sector and trying to, as they might, to blunt any messages that suggest we need to radically rethink and drastically and dramatically move, beginning immediately away from all fossil fuels and replace them with renewables, and focus on the necessary systemic changes in the way that we

use resources to lower demand and make our approach to living sustainable.

where we are in the trajectory of denial. We talked earlier about the role of industry and funding funding scientific research in the space, and I think if you if you watch the history, if you want, if you watch, if you pay attention to denial efforts across spaces and

across time, they follow a pretty predictable arc. First, you deny that a phenomenon exists, and then you deny that the phenomenon is a problem, and then you deny that the problem is severe, and when that no longer works, then you deny that people are causing the problem or that you specifically are causing the problem. Then you turn to economics and say, oh, well, it's too expensive to address it. And then in the final stages, you take one or two one or two courses and we're seeing

both of them play out. You argue that, oh, yes, the problem exists, and we're part of the solution, we've been part of the solution all along, or you couple that with the problem exists, but it's really too late to do anything about it, so we really just need to learn to adapt. And that schema, that playbook is one that we've seen play out over and over again.

And so what does that mean for these IPCC analysis Well, I think it means that we know that the fossil fuel industry spent a really long time arguing that there was no such thing as climate change, and it lost that arguments in the weight of the overwhelming evidence, and so engaging in that part of the fight really doesn't benefit it anymore. And then they spent a long time arguing that it wasn't worthwhile to address the climate crisis. But again, the evidence makes clear that we have to act.

And so what I think you've seen isn't a really heavy shift in the debate away from those early parts of the denial equation. This problem doesn't exist, this problem is manageable to focusing denial efforts on you know what we can manage this. Fossil fuels are part of the solution.

They've been part of the solution early on all along, and that I think is that disproportionate focus of industry efforts, and that efforts and funding of countries like the United States and Saudi Arabia, I think has a disproportionate impact on the science around mitigation as compared to the science that speaks to the physical reality of climate change and the mounting and incontrovertible evidence of its impacts.

governments might have to water things down. In the summary, policy makers are there in black and white about, you know, the way that committed emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure are going to blow through the remaining carbon budget, implying that there's a clear need to you know, phase out and shutter existing facilities, let alone you know, halt expansion.

That is all there, and I think it's really valuable to pull that out because though it may not make the headlines, it is certainly incontrovertible based on the cumulative science.

with carbon capture and storage called BEX and direct air capture, which is all the rage lately, the idea that you can suck carbon directly out of the ambient air. And I mentioned this because there's a extraordinary and growing reliance on BES and DAC, particularly in these models. And you hear even climate advocates say, well, we're going to need

that to address the problem. And I think one thing that the IPC scene makes really abundantly clear that people should understand is that BEX and DAX, even according to their advocates, wouldn't make any meaningful contribution to removing CO two from the atmosphere until well after twenty fifty. Some

models say twenty sixty, twenty seventy or beyond. In a world where we need to cut emissions in half by twenty thirty and eliminate them by twenty fifty, you know, strategies that say, oh, we'll start contributing to the solution sometime after twenty fifty simply have no significant place.

invest in it now. Those things are quite different, and the latter has been portrayed as a key takeaway of

this latest report, when that's far from the truth. If you look at what as Carol was just saying, if you look at the underlying science and the observations about the tremendous uncertainties about whether these technologies will even work if and when they are deployable because they are not demonstrated at scale, and the tremendous social, environmental economic risks they pose because of the massive inputs of land, energy,

and water that they require. When you look at those facts in combination with the urgent need to reduce emissions now in the immediate future, and the fact that any emissions that we continue to release have a cumulative impact, the takeaway is clear that we need to focus efforts, energy and investment on the available, deployable, proven strategies they can do that near term dramatic reduction today, and that CDR, BEX and DAC are really dangerous distractions and speculative possibilities

in the future are not a response to an ever more urgent and oppressive present where climate change is literally taking lives as we speak.