Businesses and trade groups call for global negative emissions drive

Leading UK businesses, trade associations, and investors have teamed up to issue a call for a rapid roll-out of negative emissions solutions, warning that global climate goals are being jeapordised by low levels of investment in projects that could suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

The new Coalition for Negative Emissions, which includes direct air capture technology firms Climeworks and Carbon Engineering, trade bodies the NFU and EnergyUK, energy giant Drax and business group CBI, has today warned current investment in so-called 'negative emissions' solutions must increase 30-fold if the world is to move onto a trajectory that would meet the Paris Agreement's more stretching target of limiting temperature increases to 1.5C.

A study published by the coalition this morning estimates that efforts to reduce global emissions must be matched by a push to deliver negative emissions capacity of up to 1.2Gt a year by 2025, a figure that is roughly three times the UK's annual carbon emissions.

The analysis, which was conducted with support from consultancy giant McKinsey & Company, singles out direct air capture and storage (DACS), natural climate solutions such as afforestation, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) projects as the key technologies that could deliver negative emissions at scale, while creating 10 million jobs worldwide.

"Negative emissions technologies are going to play a major role in helping the world decarbonise and businesses are advancing their development at pace," said CBI director general Tony Danker. "But unless urgent action is taken to support their deployment, we're on track to miss vital climate targets. We need to raise global ambitions and make this the boldest year of net zero action yet."

The analysis warns that without action to scale up these solutions and technologies, the world could rack up roughly 8Gt of negative emissions 'debt' by 2030 that would significantly increase the costs and disruption to society required to cap global warming at 1.5C.

EnergyUK chief executive Emma Pinchbeck urged the UK government to step up to the challenge of scaling negative emissions technology, which she emphasised would be "essential" to both the UK's mission to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and global climate targets.

"We need action to help increase investment in proven technologies to get the scale, time and support needed for further innovation," she said. "Most global pathways to achieving decarbonisation in line with 1.5 degree of warming include negative emissions technologies, so the UK has a massive opportunity to show leadership on this, as the hosts of the international climate negotiations this year."

Steve Oldham, CEO of Carbon Engineering, emphasised that technologies were available that could reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but that a policy framework was required to stimulate growth of nascent negative emissions markets.

"A portfolio of negative emissions will be critical to solve the really tough challenge of addressing climate change," he said. "Leading technologies are ready now. It's essential we now establish a market with specific, near-term targets for removals which support more ambition and de-risk our targets".

The newly launched Coalition for Negative Emissions brings together 20 companies, non-profits, investors and trade associations and aims to provide policymakers, NGOs, and other stakeholders with a "much-needed" platform to advance global action on negative emissions solutions.

Stuart Roberts, deputy president at the farming association NFU, said the formation of the coalition would allow the UK's farming sector to highlight the benefits associated with the industry's efforts to expand carbon sinks and support the nascent bioenergy with carbon capture and storage sector.

"We look forward to working with the coalition to develop a strong domestic bioenergy supply chain, which is essential to realise greenhouse removals through the bioeconomy, and in our call for government support through the Environmental Land Management scheme to incentivise on-farm carbon storage in vegetation and soils," he said.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) was considering a comment at the time of going to press.

However, negative emissions projects remain hugely controversial with some environmental campaigners and academics, who argue that new technologies and nature based projects have not been tested at scale, could prove hugely expensive, may struggle to deliver promised emissions reductions, and could have knock on impacts on land use. Critics of the fledgling sector have also warned that the development of negative emissions projects could distract from the need for governments and businesses to cut greenhouse gas emissions at source.