From Zero to Hero?: Why Integrated Assessment Modeling of Negative Emissions Technologies Is Hard and How We Can Do Better
Abstract
Climate change mitigation strategies informed by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) increasingly rely on major deployments of negative emissions technologies (NETs) to achieve global climate targets. Although NETs can strongly compliment emissions mitigation efforts, this dependence on the presumed future ability to deploy NETs at scale raises questions about the structural elements of IAMs that are influencing our understanding of their deployment. Model inter-comparison results underpinning the IPCC’s special report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC were used to explore the role that current assumptions are having on projections and the way in which emerging technologies, economic factors, innovation, and tradeoffs between negative emissions objectives and UN Sustainable Development Goals might have on future deployment of NETs. Current generation IAM scenarios widely assume we are capable of scaling up NETs over the coming 30 years to achieve negative emissions of the same order of magnitude as current global emissions (tens of gigatons of CO2/year) predominantly relying on highly land intensive NETs. While the technological potential of some of these approaches (e.g., direct air capture) is much greater than for the land-based technologies, these are seldom included in the scenarios. Alternative NETs (e.g., accelerated weathering) are generally excluded because of connections with industrialmore »
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (United States)
- Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1770154
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-ACT-SA-10465
Journal ID: ISSN 2624-9553
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Frontiers in Climate
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2624-9553
- Publisher:
- Frontiers Media S.A.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; negative emissions technologies; integrated assessment modeling; carbon dioxide removal; sustainable development goals; climate policy
Citation Formats
Fuhrman, Jay, McJeon, Haewon, Doney, Scott C., Shobe, William, and Clarens, Andres F. From Zero to Hero?: Why Integrated Assessment Modeling of Negative Emissions Technologies Is Hard and How We Can Do Better. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.3389/fclim.2019.00011.
Fuhrman, Jay, McJeon, Haewon, Doney, Scott C., Shobe, William, & Clarens, Andres F. From Zero to Hero?: Why Integrated Assessment Modeling of Negative Emissions Technologies Is Hard and How We Can Do Better. United States. https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2019.00011
Fuhrman, Jay, McJeon, Haewon, Doney, Scott C., Shobe, William, and Clarens, Andres F. Wed .
"From Zero to Hero?: Why Integrated Assessment Modeling of Negative Emissions Technologies Is Hard and How We Can Do Better". United States. https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2019.00011. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1770154.
@article{osti_1770154,
title = {From Zero to Hero?: Why Integrated Assessment Modeling of Negative Emissions Technologies Is Hard and How We Can Do Better},
author = {Fuhrman, Jay and McJeon, Haewon and Doney, Scott C. and Shobe, William and Clarens, Andres F.},
abstractNote = {Climate change mitigation strategies informed by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) increasingly rely on major deployments of negative emissions technologies (NETs) to achieve global climate targets. Although NETs can strongly compliment emissions mitigation efforts, this dependence on the presumed future ability to deploy NETs at scale raises questions about the structural elements of IAMs that are influencing our understanding of their deployment. Model inter-comparison results underpinning the IPCC’s special report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC were used to explore the role that current assumptions are having on projections and the way in which emerging technologies, economic factors, innovation, and tradeoffs between negative emissions objectives and UN Sustainable Development Goals might have on future deployment of NETs. Current generation IAM scenarios widely assume we are capable of scaling up NETs over the coming 30 years to achieve negative emissions of the same order of magnitude as current global emissions (tens of gigatons of CO2/year) predominantly relying on highly land intensive NETs. While the technological potential of some of these approaches (e.g., direct air capture) is much greater than for the land-based technologies, these are seldom included in the scenarios. Alternative NETs (e.g., accelerated weathering) are generally excluded because of connections with industrial sectors or earth system processes that are not yet included in many models. In all cases, modeling results suggest that significant NET activity will be conducted in developing regions, raising concerns about tradeoffs with UN Sustainable Development Goals. These findings provide insight into how to improve treatment of NETs in IAMs to better inform international climate policy discussions. We emphasize the need to better understand relative strength and weaknesses of full suite of NETs that can help inform the decision making for policy makers and stakeholders.},
doi = {10.3389/fclim.2019.00011},
journal = {Frontiers in Climate},
number = ,
volume = 1,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Dec 04 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Wed Dec 04 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Economics of tipping the climate dominoes
journal, January 2016
- Lemoine, Derek; Traeger, Christian P.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 6, Issue 5
Residual fossil CO2 emissions in 1.5–2 °C pathways
journal, June 2018
- Luderer, Gunnar; Vrontisi, Zoi; Bertram, Christoph
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 8, Issue 7
Expert assessment concludes negative emissions scenarios may not deliver
journal, August 2016
- Vaughan, Naomi E.; Gough, Clair
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 9
Can we manage coastal ecosystems to sequester more blue carbon?
journal, April 2017
- Macreadie, Peter I.; Nielsen, Daniel A.; Kelleway, Jeffrey J.
- Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Vol. 15, Issue 4
Global economic consequences of deploying bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)
journal, August 2016
- Muratori, Matteo; Calvin, Katherine; Wise, Marshall
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 9
Diffusion of low-carbon technologies and the feasibility of long-term climate targets
journal, January 2015
- Iyer, Gokul; Hultman, Nathan; Eom, Jiyong
- Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 90
Farming with crops and rocks to address global climate, food and soil security
journal, February 2018
- Beerling, David J.; Leake, Jonathan R.; Long, Stephen P.
- Nature Plants, Vol. 4, Issue 3
Ocean Solutions to Address Climate Change and Its Effects on Marine Ecosystems
journal, October 2018
- Gattuso, Jean-Pierre; Magnan, Alexandre K.; Bopp, Laurent
- Frontiers in Marine Science, Vol. 5
Groundwater use and salinization with grassland afforestation: SALINIZATION IN AFFORESTED GRASSLANDS
journal, July 2004
- Jobbágy, Esteban G.; Jackson, Robert B.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 10, Issue 8
Potential of global croplands and bioenergy crops for climate change mitigation through deployment for enhanced weathering
journal, April 2017
- Kantola, Ilsa B.; Masters, Michael D.; Beerling, David J.
- Biology Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 4
The Environment and Directed Technical Change
journal, January 2010
- Acemoglu, Daron; Aghion, Philippe; Bursztyn, Leonardo
- SSRN Electronic Journal
Global Carbon Budget 2018
journal, January 2018
- Le Quéré, Corinne; Andrew, Robbie M.; Friedlingstein, Pierre
- Earth System Science Data, Vol. 10, Issue 4
The habitat function of mangroves for terrestrial and marine fauna: A review
journal, August 2008
- Nagelkerken, I.; Blaber, S. J. M.; Bouillon, S.
- Aquatic Botany, Vol. 89, Issue 2
A Review of Criticisms of Integrated Assessment Models and Proposed Approaches to Address These, through the Lens of BECCS
journal, May 2019
- Gambhir, Ajay; Butnar, Isabela; Li, Pei-Hao
- Energies, Vol. 12, Issue 9
Inefficient power generation as an optimal route to negative emissions via BECCS?
journal, April 2017
- Mac Dowell, Niall; Fajardy, Mathilde
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 4
Geoengineering potential of artificially enhanced silicate weathering of olivine
journal, November 2010
- Kohler, P.; Hartmann, J.; Wolf-Gladrow, D. A.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107, Issue 47
A blueprint for blue carbon: toward an improved understanding of the role of vegetated coastal habitats in sequestering CO 2
journal, January 2011
- Mcleod, Elizabeth; Chmura, Gail L.; Bouillon, Steven
- Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Vol. 9, Issue 10
Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations: A letter
journal, April 2011
- Howarth, Robert W.; Santoro, Renee; Ingraffea, Anthony
- Climatic Change, Vol. 106, Issue 4
Negative emissions—Part 3: Innovation and upscaling
journal, May 2018
- Nemet, Gregory F.; Callaghan, Max W.; Creutzig, Felix
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 6
Between Scylla and Charybdis: Delayed mitigation narrows the passage between large-scale CDR and high costs
journal, March 2018
- Strefler, Jessica; Bauer, Nico; Kriegler, Elmar
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 4
Promises and perils of the Paris Agreement
journal, May 2019
- Lawrence, Mark G.; Schäfer, Stefan
- Science, Vol. 364, Issue 6443
CO 2 Deserts: Implications of Existing CO 2 Supply Limitations for Carbon Management
journal, September 2014
- Middleton, Richard S.; Clarens, Andres F.; Liu, Xiaowei
- Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 48, Issue 19
Deployment of a Geographical Information System Life Cycle Assessment Integrated Framework for Exploring the Opportunities and Challenges of Enhanced Oil Recovery Using Industrial CO 2 Supply in the United States
journal, August 2016
- Abotalib, Mohammad; Zhao, Fu; Clarens, Andres
- ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, Vol. 4, Issue 9
The global tree restoration potential
journal, July 2019
- Bastin, Jean-Francois; Finegold, Yelena; Garcia, Claude
- Science, Vol. 365, Issue 6448
Rapid carbon mineralization for permanent disposal of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions
journal, June 2016
- Matter, J. M.; Stute, M.; Snaebjornsdottir, S. O.
- Science, Vol. 352, Issue 6291
GCAM v5.1: representing the linkages between energy, water, land, climate, and economic systems
journal, January 2019
- Calvin, Katherine; Patel, Pralit; Clarke, Leon
- Geoscientific Model Development, Vol. 12, Issue 2
A low energy demand scenario for meeting the 1.5 °C target and sustainable development goals without negative emission technologies
journal, June 2018
- Grubler, Arnulf; Wilson, Charlie; Bento, Nuno
- Nature Energy, Vol. 3, Issue 6
Irrigated afforestation of the Sahara and Australian Outback to end global warming
journal, August 2009
- Ornstein, Leonard; Aleinov, Igor; Rind, David
- Climatic Change, Vol. 97, Issue 3-4
Soil carbon debt of 12,000 years of human land use
journal, August 2017
- Sanderman, Jonathan; Hengl, Tomislav; Fiske, Gregory J.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 114, Issue 36
Alternative pathways to the 1.5 °C target reduce the need for negative emission technologies
journal, April 2018
- van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Stehfest, Elke; Gernaat, David E. H. J.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 8, Issue 5
The race to remove CO2 needs more contestants
journal, March 2019
- Rau, Greg H.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 9, Issue 4
Energy investment needs for fulfilling the Paris Agreement and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
journal, June 2018
- McCollum, David L.; Zhou, Wenji; Bertram, Christoph
- Nature Energy, Vol. 3, Issue 7
Modeling meets science and technology: an introduction to a special issue on negative emissions
journal, April 2013
- Tavoni, Massimo; Socolow, Robert
- Climatic Change, Vol. 118, Issue 1
From land use to land cover: restoring the afforestation signal in a coupled integrated assessment–earth system model and the implications for CMIP5 RCP simulations
journal, January 2014
- Di Vittorio, A. V.; Chini, L. P.; Bond-Lamberty, B.
- Biogeosciences, Vol. 11, Issue 22
The mutual dependence of negative emission technologies and energy systems
journal, January 2019
- Creutzig, Felix; Breyer, Christian; Hilaire, Jérôme
- Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 12, Issue 6
Mineral CO 2 Sequestration by Steel Slag Carbonation
journal, December 2005
- Huijgen, Wouter J. J.; Comans, Rob N. J.
- Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 39, Issue 24
Currents and Sediment Transport in Mangrove Forests
journal, March 1997
- Furukawa, K.; Wolanski, E.; Mueller, H.
- Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, Vol. 44, Issue 3
Future capacity growth of energy technologies: are scenarios consistent with historical evidence?
journal, November 2012
- Wilson, C.; Grubler, A.; Bauer, N.
- Climatic Change, Vol. 118, Issue 2
Can the world kick its fossil-fuel addiction fast enough?
journal, April 2018
- Tollefson, Jeff
- Nature, Vol. 556, Issue 7702
On the proportionality between global temperature change and cumulative CO 2 emissions during periods of net negative CO 2 emissions
journal, May 2016
- Zickfeld, Kirsten; MacDougall, Andrew H.; Matthews, H. Damon
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 5
BECCS capability of dedicated bioenergy crops under a future land‐use scenario targeting net negative carbon emissions
journal, September 2014
- Kato, Etsushi; Yamagata, Yoshiki
- Earth's Future, Vol. 2, Issue 9
Enhanced weathering strategies for stabilizing climate and averting ocean acidification
journal, December 2015
- Taylor, Lyla L.; Quirk, Joe; Thorley, Rachel M. S.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 6, Issue 4
Natural climate solutions
journal, October 2017
- Griscom, Bronson W.; Adams, Justin; Ellis, Peter W.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 114, Issue 44
BECCS potential in Brazil: Achieving negative emissions in ethanol and electricity production based on sugar cane bagasse and other residues
journal, October 2016
- Moreira, José Roberto; Romeiro, Viviane; Fuss, Sabine
- Applied Energy, Vol. 179
An inter-model assessment of the role of direct air capture in deep mitigation pathways
journal, July 2019
- Realmonte, Giulia; Drouet, Laurent; Gambhir, Ajay
- Nature Communications, Vol. 10, Issue 1
Science and policy characteristics of the Paris Agreement temperature goal
journal, July 2016
- Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich; Rogelj, Joeri; Schaeffer, Michiel
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 6, Issue 9
IAMC 1.5°C Scenario Explorer and Data hosted by IIASA
text, January 2018
- Huppmann, Daniel; Kriegler, Elmar; Krey, Volker
- Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Sediment Retention by a Mediterranean Posidonia oceanica Meadow: The Balance between Deposition and Resuspension
journal, April 2001
- Gacia, E.; Duarte, C. M.
- Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, Vol. 52, Issue 4
Implications of Limiting CO2 Concentrations for Land Use and Energy
journal, May 2009
- Wise, M.; Calvin, K.; Thomson, A.
- Science, Vol. 324, Issue 5931
Up-scaling, formative phases, and learning in the historical diffusion of energy technologies
journal, November 2012
- Wilson, Charlie
- Energy Policy, Vol. 50
Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large: An Update Based on Country-Level Estimates
journal, January 2019
- Coady, David; Parry, Ian; Le, Nghia-Piotr
- IMF Working Papers, Vol. 19, Issue 89
A Process for Capturing CO2 from the Atmosphere
journal, August 2018
- Keith, David W.; Holmes, Geoffrey; St. Angelo, David
- Joule, Vol. 2, Issue 8
2 °C and SDGs: united they stand, divided they fall?
journal, March 2016
- von Stechow, Christoph; Minx, Jan C.; Riahi, Keywan
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 3
Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
journal, August 2018
- Steffen, Will; Rockström, Johan; Richardson, Katherine
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 115, Issue 33
Anthropogenic Disturbance of Element Cycles at the Earth’s Surface
journal, July 2012
- Sen, Indra S.; Peucker-Ehrenbrink, Bernhard
- Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 46, Issue 16
Scenarios towards limiting global mean temperature increase below 1.5 °C
journal, March 2018
- Rogelj, Joeri; Popp, Alexander; Calvin, Katherine V.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 8, Issue 4
Potential and costs of carbon dioxide removal by enhanced weathering of rocks
journal, March 2018
- Strefler, Jessica; Amann, Thorben; Bauer, Nico
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 3
Global potential of biospheric carbon management for climate mitigation
journal, November 2014
- Canadell, Josep G.; Schulze, E. Detlef
- Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1
An empirical model to estimate the propagation of random breaking and nonbreaking waves over vegetation fields
journal, April 2004
- Mendez, Fernando J.; Losada, Inigo J.
- Coastal Engineering, Vol. 51, Issue 2
Negative emissions—Part 2: Costs, potentials and side effects
journal, May 2018
- Fuss, Sabine; Lamb, William F.; Callaghan, Max W.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 6
Ratcheting ambition to limit warming to 1.5 °C–trade-offs between emission reductions and carbon dioxide removal
journal, June 2018
- Holz, Christian; Siegel, Lori S.; Johnston, Eleanor
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 6
Biophysical and economic limits to negative CO2 emissions
journal, December 2015
- Smith, Pete; Davis, Steven J.; Creutzig, Felix
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Trade-offs of different land and bioenergy policies on the path to achieving climate targets
journal, October 2013
- Calvin, Katherine; Wise, Marshall; Kyle, Page
- Climatic Change, Vol. 123, Issue 3-4
Implications of sustainable development considerations for comparability across nationally determined contributions
journal, January 2018
- Iyer, Gokul; Calvin, Katherine; Clarke, Leon
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 8, Issue 2
How to spend a dwindling greenhouse gas budget
journal, January 2018
- Obersteiner, Michael; Bednar, Johannes; Wagner, Fabian
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 8, Issue 1
A new scenario logic for the Paris Agreement long-term temperature goal
journal, September 2019
- Rogelj, Joeri; Huppmann, Daniel; Krey, Volker
- Nature, Vol. 573, Issue 7774
The Carbon Dioxide Removal Model Intercomparison Project (CDRMIP): rationale and experimental protocol for CMIP6
journal, January 2018
- Keller, David P.; Lenton, Andrew; Scott, Vivian
- Geoscientific Model Development, Vol. 11, Issue 3
The road to achieving the long-term Paris targets: energy transition and the role of direct air capture
journal, August 2017
- Marcucci, Adriana; Kypreos, Socrates; Panos, Evangelos
- Climatic Change, Vol. 144, Issue 2
Land-Management Options for Greenhouse Gas Removal and Their Impacts on Ecosystem Services and the Sustainable Development Goals
journal, October 2019
- Smith, Pete; Adams, Justin; Beerling, David J.
- Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Vol. 44, Issue 1
Declining CO 2 price paths
journal, October 2019
- Daniel, Kent D.; Litterman, Robert B.; Wagner, Gernot
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 116, Issue 42
Techno-Economic Review of Direct Air Capture Systems for Large Scale Mitigation of Atmospheric CO2
journal, January 2015
- Broehm, Micah; Strefler, Jessica; Bauer, Nico
- SSRN Electronic Journal
Negative emissions—Part 1: Research landscape and synthesis
journal, May 2018
- Minx, Jan C.; Lamb, William F.; Callaghan, Max W.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 6
The value of estuarine and coastal ecosystem services
journal, May 2011
- Barbier, Edward B.; Hacker, Sally D.; Kennedy, Chris
- Ecological Monographs, Vol. 81, Issue 2
Direct air capture of CO2 and climate stabilization: A model based assessment
journal, February 2013
- Chen, Chen; Tavoni, Massimo
- Climatic Change, Vol. 118, Issue 1
Negative emissions technologies and carbon capture and storage to achieve the Paris Agreement commitments
journal, April 2018
- Haszeldine, R. Stuart; Flude, Stephanie; Johnson, Gareth
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 376, Issue 2119
Wave Attenuation at a Salt Marsh Margin: A Case Study of an Exposed Coast on the Yangtze Estuary
journal, July 2011
- Yang, S. L.; Shi, B. W.; Bouma, T. J.
- Estuaries and Coasts, Vol. 35, Issue 1
Works referencing / citing this record:
The BECCS Implementation Gap–A Swedish Case Study
text, January 2021
- Fuss, Sabine; Johnsson, Filip
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin