Tackling climate change - The politics of Carbon Dioxide Removals (CDR)

In order to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2° and possibly 1.5°, as stated in the Paris Agreement signed in 2015, the world must achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. According to the IPCC, reducing emissions will not be sufficient: the 1.5° (or even 2°) target requires removing CO2 from the atmosphere at a large scale through the use of the so-called Carbon Dioxide Removals (CDR) – also known as Negative Emission Technologies (NET). CDR brings together different techniques by which CO2 is captured from the atmosphere and stored on land, in the ocean, or in geological formations, either by enhancing natural sinks or by using technological processes. Despite being widely put forward in IPCC decarbonation pathways, CDR mostly exist today as prototypes or at a small scale. 

CDR techniques have received little attention from governments and non-state actors until recently and the issue is almost absent in the public debate and media space, particularly in France. There are arguably good reasons for this silence: many fear that the promise of CDR will be used as an excuse for companies and policy makers to avoid necessary emission cuts, while others underline the “technological solutionism” of this approach. However the field is evolving rapidly. Investments in CDRs are increasing and a growing body of scientific articles, expert reports and conferences address the topic, which is moving up the agendas in climate policy. Considered "unavoidable" by the 6th IPCC report, CDR will play an important role in climate debates and policies in the near future.

In this context, this workshop aims to open the debate on CDR techniques in France. We wish to foster a broad, multidisciplinary and pluralistic discussion of the issue, combining talks on scientific and governance approaches together with social sciences and historical accounts. Our goal is to develop grounded, critical understandings of CDR in order to unpack the shifting visions of the fight against climate change that they carry.

Workshop organized by Hélène Guillemot & Laure Manach, funded by the ANR research project “POSCA: the promises of soil carbon sequestration” coordinated by Céline Granjou.

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