As leaders and activists at COP 26 discuss climate policy, complete with its world of buzzwords, …
With the UN climate conference COP26 on the horizon, headlines, taglines, and political speeches are about to be filled with acronyms and jargon.
COP26, which runs from October 31 to November 12, four main goals will be at the center of discussions: The first is to secure a worldwide commitment to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, in the hopes of achieving an 1.5 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures by the end of the century.
Even with such clear goals, the process of reaching them will be a long one — the objectives themselves are nothing new; they’re exactly what scientists have prescribed for years if we are to maintain a habitable planet.
In CCS, CO2 from combustion is concentrated, captured—usually in liquid form—and transported via pipelines, ships, or trains, and stored deep in the earth, often in old oil wells or gas reservoirs.
Post-combustion, which, as its name suggests, is the collection of CO2 from exhaust after fuel combustion, is the most prevalent form of CCS since it can be implemented in existing power plants.
All CCS technology is still in its extremely early stages; it is expensive and places a high demand on energy and water resources for plants, when there are few incentives in place to offset those costs.
These sites capture and store about 40 million metric tons of CO2 each year, which is sizeable, but pales in comparison to the 6,558 million metric tons the EPA estimates were emitted in the U.S.
The question itself is a controversial matter, given the number of failed attempts by fossil fuel companies, the diversion of resources from other more effective green technology , and the impermanet nature of the stored carbon — Ketan Joshi writes “The vast majority of is captured so it can be re-injected into oil reservoirs to aid the extraction of more fossil fuels; only a small minority is dedicated geological storage of that CO2”.
They also cite Section 45Q of the Internal Revenue Code, Launching Energy Advancement and Development through Innovations for Natural Gas Act, Enhancing Fossil Fuel Energy Carbon Technology Act, and the Fossil Energy Research and Development Act of 2019 as policies that can help support broader investment in and adoption of carbon capture technology.
But carbon offsets are often criticized for being based on inaccurate measurements or flawed methodology and for allowing emitters to continue harmful practices while shifting the brunt of the burden onto someone else, often people in third world countries.
Often, they’re best as a sort of training wheels to help organizations eventually reach true carbon neutrality—not creating any new carbon at all—but are weaker commitments for long-term reduction.
If the large producer institutes carbon capture technology or adopts renewables in its practices and effectively shrinks its carbon footprint, it may end up only emitting 4 tons of carbon, thus only needing four credits, and it can sell the remaining credit to the small producer at market price.
In order for a cap and trade system to really work, some degree of international cooperation is needed.
Economists have predicted that a carbon tax will work only with a considerably high tax price, and social justice advocates have illuminated the need for a carbon tax combined with an increase in alternatives to carbon-heavy products, such as increased public transit to reduce a need for driving or increased investment in renewable energy.
COP can help address both the concerns of a high price and low-carbon options by giving space for leaders to build sizeable carbon taxes with plans for alternatives to fossil fuels.
After spending summer 2019 as an intern on the Forbes Leadership channel, I’m returning with a degree in environmental studies from Amherst College, where I was the Editor in Chief of the campus paper, The Student.