Kevin Anderson on CDR and NETs - Reductionist versus systems thinking
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Prof. Kevin Anderson - excerpt from main interview titled Climate Failures & Phantasies.
View whole interview: • Kevin Anderson: Climat...
In all of the scenarios, all of the high level scenarios, in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, what is called Working Group 3 of the IPCC, all of their scenarios, and indeed, really all of them, all of the major global high-level scenarios, and these are scenarios about the future, in terms of energy and emissions, they all rely on some form of carbon dioxide removal. And these terms now, trip off our tongue, as if they're perfectly reasonable things to discuss. Carbon Dioxide Removal, negative emission technologies, and increasingly even the language of geoengineering. But these things aren't material, particularly the negative emissions and the geoengineering, they're not actually material things you can go out and get and buy at scale. They are at very best, very small pilot schemes that capture a few thousand tonnes here and there, but set against the fact is, we're emitting around about 36 to 37 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year from burning fossil fuels. These technologies are just capturing just a few 1000 tonnes, there's absolutely no way that you can scale these things up from just being very small pilot schemes, often with a very chequered technical history, that you can scale these things up in a timeline that matches the carbon budgets that come out of the science that relate to 1.5 and two degrees centigrade. And yet we evoke them as if somehow they are, they can be aligned, they cannot be aligned. In fact, they've undermined the narrative, I would argue for the last at least 10 to 15 years, if not 20 years. So the adoption of these sorts of technologies, and it's not they're not the only ones, not only these technologies that are planned to remove on our carbon dioxide, to suck the carbon dioxide, hundreds of billions of tonnes, up to half a trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and bury it securely underground in a timely manner. The assumption of that is actually done the oil companies job for them. It has allowed us to postulate ongoing fossil fuel use, to avoid major profound political and social change. I have made this point before; I think, what I've often referred to as integrated assessment models, whilst I think a lot of the modellers are good people doing as objective work as they can, the the boundaries they work within are deeply subjective. And they have actually done the job of Exxon for the last 20 years by undermining the narratives we've needed to have to start to address climate change. So and I think that these have been so normalised now that when you talk about them, and that they may not work, as is assumed you almost seem to be an extremist, so you are an extremist, because you're pointing out that these technologies that barely exist, are completely relied on in the models; that is seen to be the extreme position, rather than the extreme position being, how on earth can it be that virtually every single model run that we have, rely on these, either technologies or some other use of, the awful term of nature based solutions. The language we use, it sort of captures something and makes it all sound so neat that we can simply put it into the accountancy spreadsheet that underpins these models, and hey, presto, we can evoke wonderful low carbon futures that occur almost overnight. And the journalists have allowed this to happen. A lot of the senior academics have allowed this to happen. And I think it comes back to the my point earlier that actually, often as experts, we're very good at reductionist thinking but we're not very good at Systems Thinking
94 million barrels of oil are consumed every day carbon capture is a cruel joke😢
Please forgive my pun, but it's a crude joke.
It takes more energy to capture carbon than we received from burning the hydrocarbon in the first place. Thermodynamics is not a suggestion.
No, I've looked into numbers, you'll need at least 30% on top. No more than 100% if done properly, still it's 30% MORE extraction of fossil fuels, or it's a waste of massive renewable capacity. And much more importantly, it's not done at scale necessary, not even near.
Dig into the soil and see no worms
Look up in the sky and see no birds
No fireflies light any nights no gnats swarm streetlights
After 2 nights warmer than days crops in town stopped growing for past 3 years
Annuals are now perennials are now evergreen
I’ve seen the drastic changes just in past 10 years just in SE US. It’s not a linear curve it’s exponential and it’s too late.
Dig in the soil…see what’s no longer there.
Good luck
- Horticulturist in Rome ga
Excellent Bullcrap capture and removal Nick! Hundreds of billions of tonnes of bullcrap still out there!
Kevin anderson one of the top 5
Thx Nick!
Cheers Paul.
Who are the other 4?
@@turtlebayster
Andrew Glickson
Johan Rockstrom
DahrJamail
Eric Rignot
Jason Box
Will Steffan. RIP
Paul Beck with
Jim Massa
Eliot Jacobson
Mark Cranfield
Natalia Shakova, Igor Semelitov
Kevin Anderson
Jennifer Frances , Euan Nisbet, Peter Carter, Guy McPherson
We're in such deep trouble climate-wise that we need carbon dioxide removal alongside aggressive cuts in emissions. There are many promising CDR technologies out there although, as Kevin says, they're tiny at the moment. So we need to grow them - fast. Why? Because the fossil fuel industry has delayed progress for so long. It's not a choice between carbon reduction and carbon removal. We urgently need both. Just because the fossil fuel industry uses CDR and CCS as an excuse for business as usual doesn't mean we don't need them.
If I recall, a recent report estimated a requirement of 40x growth in novel technologies for carbon capture every year until 2035. I cannot see how it is feasible. I don't know any properly informed person (outside those seeking funding) who thinks it us. Do you?
@@NickBreeze It's difficult to comment on some vague unreferenced report. However, I do know that certain technologies, such as enhanced rock weathering, biochar, and some ocean-based solutions have the potential to scale significantly. And they have beneficial co-benefits like lessening the need for artificial fertilisers. Even if we get to net zero by 2050, we're likely to have a CO2 atmospheric concentration of 460ppm. We're witnessing the effects of 420ppm so we need to get that concentration down, preferably eventually to under 300ppm. I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting... That we don't work on these technologies? Because that seems a bit perverse. Just to be clear - I absolutely believe our no. 1 task is to stop emissions as fast as possible. I do not believe carbon removal is a substitute for that. However, we can reduce emissions alongside removing carbon from the atmosphere even if that is difficult and requires significant investment. It's not either/or, it's both/and.
@mikedaw4193 I'll find the report as I kept it. It was a recent analysis of CDR proposals/projects to meet the task. The point being made in the clip is that we should certainly continue the research but not include it in the models used to inform policy if they are not yet proven. Doing so gives a signal to oil companies and wider society that BAU is acceptable. Reducing our impact while looking to develop/deploy safe cdr in years to come is better than ploughing on assuming we will deploy and be hoid to go.
@@NickBreeze Indeed. Although it's a somewhat nuanced point, which is why I wanted to respond, especially as some people who've commented on the video seem to conclude that the whole carbon removal venture is therefore a waste of time and effort. Which I think is a dangerous endpoint to reach.
Here's the report - www.stateofcdr.org/@@mikedaw4193