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}
}
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