Diverse carbon dioxide removal approaches could reduce impacts on the energy–water–land system

Abstract

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a critical tool in all plans to limit warming to below 1.5 °C, but only a few CDR pathways have been incorporated into integrated assessment models that international climate policy deliberations rely on. A more diverse set of CDR approaches could have important benefits and costs for energy–water–land systems. Here we use an integrated assessment model to assess a complete suite of CDR approaches including bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, afforestation, direct air capture with carbon storage, enhanced weathering, biochar and direct ocean capture with carbon storage. CDR provided by each approach spans three orders of magnitude, with deployment and associated impacts varying between regions. Total removals reach approximately 10 GtCO2 yr−1 globally, largely to offset residual CO2 and non-CO2 emissions, which remain costly to avoid even under scenarios specifically designed to reduce them.

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Fig. 1: CO2 emissions and removals.
Fig. 2: Primary and final energy impacts.
Fig. 3: Land-use impacts.
Fig. 4: Water use impacts.
Fig. 5: Sensitivity analysis and comparison with AR6 removals.

Data availability

All model output data for this study are available in a public repository accessible at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7492895.

Code availability

GCAM is an open-source community model available at https://github.com/JGCRI/gcam-core/releases. The particular version of GCAM, additional input files and data-processing scripts associated with this study are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7492895.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the ClimateWorks Foundation (J.F., S.M., F.M.W. and H.M.), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (A.F.C., S.C.D. and W.S.) and the University of Virginia Environmental Resilience Institute (A.F.C., S.C.D. and W.S.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Joint Global Change Research Institute, University of Maryland and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD, USA

    Jay Fuhrman, Candelaria Bergero, Maridee Weber & Haewon McJeon

  2. Climate Works Foundation, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Seth Monteith & Frances M. Wang

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Andres F. Clarens

  4. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Scott C. Doney

  5. Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    William Shobe

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  1. Jay Fuhrman
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Contributions

J.F., S.M., F.M.W., A.F.C., S.C.D., W.S. and H.M. designed the research. J.F. led the modelling and wrote the first draft of the paper. J.F., C.B., M.W. and H.M. contributed to the modelling tools. All authors contributed to writing the paper.

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Haewon McJeon.

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Fuhrman, J., Bergero, C., Weber, M. et al. Diverse carbon dioxide removal approaches could reduce impacts on the energy–water–land system.
Nat. Clim. Chang. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01604-9

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  • Received: 23 August 2022

  • Accepted: 12 January 2023

  • Published: 09 March 2023

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01604-9

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