NEW Investor briefing: " Net Expectations" from @GreenpeaceUK researched by @FuelOnTheFire . It aims to help investors assess the role of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in corporate climate plans. https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Net-Expectations-Greenpeace-CDR-briefing.pdf

Some key conclusions:

In no modelled pathway can the Paris goals be achieved without rapid emissions reductions. CDR is not an alternative to emissions reduction, and can only play a minority role in mitigation. Companies’ emissions reductions are more important than overall net-zero targets.

In the discussion around CDR and especially NCS, we seem to be losing sight of the fundamental limits that exist to their use. Some examples:

Using BECCS to remove 12,000 Mt/year of CO2 (the median in 2100 in IPCC 1.5 ̊C pathways with low overshoot) would require an estimated 380-700 Mha of land: this is equivalent to one to two times the size of India, or 25-46 percent of total world crop-growing area.

About 500 Mha of previously-forested and currently unused land could be available for reforestation i.e. without necessarily impacting food or biodiversity. To put this in perspective, Shell has proposed planting 50 Mha of forest to offset its own emissions: 1/10 for 1 company.

The IPCC reports that the maximum sustainable CO2 removal in 2050 by new forests is somewhere between 500 and 3,600 Mt per year. The maximum for BECCS is between 500 and 5,000 Mt. However, since they compete for land, these potentials cannot simply be added to each other.

To put these in perspective, Eni and International Airlines Group each anticipate using forests to offset 30 Mt/ year of CO2 by 2050: just these two companies could thus exhaust up to 12% of the available total.

Problems arise when CDR is seen as a vital plank of mitigation strategies, as limiting climate change may become subject to its inherent uncertainties. And when CDR is deployed at a large scale, negative impacts begin to become inevitable.

The briefing set out questions investors may wish to ask companies to assess the degree of reliance on CDR as well as more detail on how the IPCC data shows CDR contributing in different industrial sectors.