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Power to the people

Emily Cox suggests that to meet our decarbonisation goals, CO2 removal technologies are needed at scale. Targets are no longer enough – we need significant financial support, as well as mechanisms that can systematically build trust and dialogue across all parts of society

Words by Emily Cox
1 September 2021
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An expert on public perceptions of CO2-removal technologies, Emily Cox (Cardiff University, UK) is hopeful that the UK can meet its decarbonisation goals – an incredible community is working to meet the challenge and, despite the pandemic, we have an extremely strong public mandate for climate action in the UK. That said, Emily is concerned because the UK is currently falling far short of its own targets.

“The Net Zero report by the Committee on Climate Change contains one of the scariest tables I’ve ever seen, showing the measures needed to meet net zero versus the progress so far in 2017. For example, by 2050 we need to sequester via carbon capture and storage 100% of industrial emissions; in 2017, the amount sequestered was 0%. It’s the same story in nearly every sector. Promises and targets have not been followed up with delivery. The narrative of the UK as a ‘climate leader’ is full of holes, and it will be much more difficult to encourage other countries to make drastic cuts at this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP26) if the UK doesn’t have a way of meeting its own targets.”

A major challenge is the lack of financial incentive for long-term storage of the CO2 that we capture.

“The CO2 needs to be stored on very long timescales, but doing this doesn’t currently confer a financial benefit. More permanent CO2 storage solutions need financial support, and currently there is no sufficient mechanism for doing that. We also need to remember that it is usually society who pays for this stuff (directly or indirectly), and therefore implementing these policies requires public buy-in. I’m not sure we’re doing enough to capitalise on the incredibly high level of support for addressing climate change.”

Fighting misinformation
Misinformation and lack of trust is another concern that we must combat with public engagement.

“In the UK, trust in scientists is quite high on average, but this average figure masks the emerging polarisation within it. I worry that people are being left behind – feeling as though no one cares about their concerns and being caught up by misinformation that appears more convincing and less distant than scientists do. For example, our work indicates that the controversy over fracking in the UK may have reduced people’s trust in subsurface energy technologies, which in turn might make it more difficult to develop and site techniques such as enhanced geothermal energy and carbon capture and storage.

“I like to think that we’re moving towards increased understanding of the importance of deliberation. When given the time to deliberate a complex topic over several hours, non-experts can be incredibly insightful, but I don’t think this message has permeated the whole of the scientific community. Our work has shown that experts in the field of CO2 removal tend to perceive the public in a negative way, as a barrier to overcome. We need to recognise that the public also plays a role as enablers of the low-carbon transition.”

Building engagement
“A large and well-publicised national engagement process could help to improve transparency and trust. A great start would be a Citizen’s Assembly process for deciding the pathway we wish to take, including the role of CO2-removal and geoscientific technologies within that, as well as the trade-offs people are willing to make, in a way that is perceived as fair, just and inclusive. But such an approach must commit to tangible action, because giving society a ‘pseudo voice’ is just as bad as giving no voice at all.

“I want the whole of society to have the opportunity to participate in this conversation. After all, we as a society determine policy mandates (through our votes), pay for innovation (through our taxes), create markets for new products, and will ultimately live alongside the technologies that we use to meet our decarbonisation goals.”

Emily Cox
Dr Emily Cox is a Research Associate at Cardiff University, UK, working on environmental policy and social psychology. She is an expert on public perceptions, policy and ethics of CO2 removal technologies, including CO2 sequestration via enhanced weathering.  coxe3@cardiff.ac.uk @lc3m_cdr

 


The full interview with Emily Cox appears below

 

What are you currently working on?

As part of my role as a Research Associate at Cardiff University, UK, I’m just finishing a project on public perceptions of CO2-removal technologies. We know that CO2-removal will probably be required at some considerable scale, and we know from decades of research that responsible, effective innovation really benefits from communication with a diverse range of people, including members of the public. In particular, together with the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation, we’ve been looking at enhanced weathering – a process whereby crushed basaltic rocks is spread onto fields to sequester CO2. I’m also working on a project with the Unconventional Hydrocarbons in the UK Energy System, where we’re trying to find out whether the controversy around fracking had an impact on public perceptions of other technologies, such as deep geothermal energy.

How optimistic do you feel about the UK’s decarbonisation goals and the role that CO2 removal and negative emissions technologies can play in getting us there?

I try so hard to maintain optimism, and I do still believe that it’s possible to meet the decarbonisation goals, because if I didn’t, it would be a struggle to go to work in the morning! We have an incredible community of people working so hard on meeting this challenge. We also have an extremely strong public mandate for climate action in the UK, which creates a huge opportunity. Despite the pandemic, people still see climate change as one of the biggest issues we face. In fact, research suggests that people’s support for climate policies is much higher than politicians tend to think it is. People mainly just want policies that are fair and economically progressive (that is, that do not disproportionately affect low-income groups).

That said, a major cause for pessimism is that the UK is still not on track to meet the Sixth Carbon Budget, which constrains the volume of greenhouse gases the UK can emit between 2033 and 2037 under the Climate Change Act.  The Net Zero report by the Committee on Climate Change contains one of the scariest tables I’ve ever seen, showing the measures needed to meet net zero versus the progress so far in 2017. For example, by 2050 we need to sequester via carbon capture and storage 100% of industrial emissions; in 2017, the amount sequestered was 0%. It’s the same story in nearly every sector. Promises and targets have not been followed up with delivery; the narrative of the UK as a ‘climate leader’ is full of holes, and it will be much more difficult to encourage other countries to make drastic cuts to their emissions at this year’s Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) if the UK doesn’t have a way of meeting its own targets.

CO2 removal has an important role, but a small one. We absolutely cannot rely on CO2 removal – via Direct Air Capture, or tree planting, or whatever else – to make up for any lack of ambition in reducing emissions. We need a fundamental transformation of energy systems: decarbonisation of electricity, space heating and road transport, plus big reductions in energy demand in most industrialised economies, including the UK. There is a risk that the promise of CO2 removal allows us to forget that some difficult and expensive decisions will need to be made, and that there will be winners and losers.

What are some of the biggest challenges we face?

In terms of CO2-removal, probably the major challenge is the lack of financial incentive to store the CO2 that we capture. The CO2 needs to be stored for very long timescales, but doing this doesn’t really confer a financial benefit on anyone. Currently, the majority of efforts to remove CO2 rely on things like tree planting, which are at risk of being very short-lived indeed. Broadly speaking, there is a trade-off between the Technology Readiness Level of a CO2-removal technique (that is, how long it might be before the technique is ready to be rolled out at large scale) versus how permanently the technique can sequester the CO2.. The more permanent solutions need financial support, and there isn’t currently a sufficient mechanism for doing that, anywhere in the world. We also need to remember that it is usually the public who pays for this stuff (via taxes or via private enterprise), and therefore implementing these policies will require public buy-in. I think the potential for that definitely exists, but I’m not sure we’re doing enough to capitalize on the current extremely high level of support for addressing climate change.

Another challenge I think we face, and this really worries me, is misinformation and loss of trust. Without trust, it becomes very difficult to make the case for anything. In the UK, trust in scientists is generally quite high on average, but this average figure masks the emerging polarization within it. I worry that people are being left behind – feeling as though no one cares about their concerns, and being caught up by misinformation that appears more convincing and less distant than scientists do. We tend to blame social media for such polarization, but it’s not as simple as that. For example, our work indicates that the controversy over fracking in the UK may have reduced people’s trust in subsurface energy technologies, which in turn might make it more difficult to develop and site techniques such as enhanced geothermal energy and carbon capture and storage. We all hold some responsibility for that – the debate over fracking became very polarized, with both sides emphasising particular ‘facts’ and dismissing others, and with both sides dismissing people’s concerns and opinions as ‘ignorant’. My worry is that we need innovations such as CO2-removal technologies to meet our decarbonisation objectives, but the successful implementation of such technologies will rely on a certain amount of trust and dialogue across all parts of society. We need to put mechanisms in place that can build that trust.

Do you think we are doing enough to effectively communicate the essential role for geoscience in our greener future?

I think it’s important to recognize that the role for CO2-removal is not agreed on, even in the scientific community. Therefore it is not as simple as merely communicating the role for CO2-removal in the same way as it might be for, say, switching to renewable electricity. The research on CO2-removal is at an early stage and we still don’t necessarily know exactly what needs to be done, in terms of policy mechanisms or technology portfolios. However, this creates a unique opportunity in that we can genuinely try to bring people along with us as we define its role. CO2-removal innovation and upscaling requires an ongoing conversation – for example, on which options to prioritize and the trade-offs between different pathways. I want the whole of society to have the opportunity to participate in this conversation. After all, we as a society determine policy mandates (through our votes), pay for innovation (through our taxes), create markets for new products, and will ultimately live alongside the technologies that we use to meet our decarbonisation goals.

With increased understanding of the key issues associated with the energy transition, how has our approach to communication and public engagement changed?

I think we’re moving towards increased understanding of the importance of deliberation, both for research and for public engagement. Research over many decades has shown that people are often smarter than we give them credit for – when given the time and the opportunity to deliberate a complex topic over several hours, people come up with incredibly perceptive insights. Frustratingly though, I don’t think this message has permeated the whole of the scientific community. Some work we did a while ago showed that experts working in the field of CO2-removal tend to perceive the public in a very negative way, as a problem or a barrier to overcome. We need to recognize that the public also play a role as enablers of the low-carbon transition. However, as researchers, we need to work on our mechanisms for actually acting on people’s responses and their concerns; this is something my colleagues and I intend to work hard on over the next few years, but there are many challenges ahead.

Do you have any recommendations for what more can be done?

I mean, I would say this, but I think we need more money for CO2-removal! Not just in terms of early-stage research and development, but in terms of real financial incentives for long-term / permanent storage. We’re not really addressing the ‘valley of death’ issue for new technologies; we have many ideas that work at demo scale, but which aren’t currently financially viable to scale up. We need to make sure that cheap offsets, such as tree planting in developing countries, doesn’t distract us from the need to permanently sequester the vast majority of the additional CO2 we produce, and the need to take responsibility for our historical emissions by implementing technologies domestically. We also need to ensure that the promise of CO2 removal doesn’t distract us from the need to reduce emissions in the first place. For this, some have proposed separating the targets, so that we have one target for mitigation (for example, the 97% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 levels recommended by the Climate Change Committee), and a completely separate target for CO2 removal. Separate targets won’t completely fix the problem though, because the existence of a target doesn’t necessarily translate to action.

I also feel that we need a more systematic approach to public engagement. Currently, most work is done at the project-scale, which is super important but rather ad-hoc. It’s not just local communities that matter; a large and well-publicized national engagement process could help to improve transparency and trust. A great start would be a Citizen’s Assembly process for deciding the pathway we wish to take, including the role of CO2-removal and geoscientific technologies within that. The UK Climate Assembly was a great start, but it was just the beginning of what should be an ongoing process with the potential to reveal much more detailed information about the pathways people prefer, and the trade-offs people are willing to make. For the idea to really work, we need more of these, on many different topics and at lots of different scales, in a way that is perceived as fair, just, and inclusive. They also need to result in real, tangible action, because giving society a ‘pseudo voice’ is just as bad as giving no voice at all. Therefore, in order to fulfil their full potential, Citizen’s Assemblies need to align with a policy process that commits (in advance) to act on the recommendations.

Are there any upcoming projects or developments you’re particularly excited about?

The Government is due to publish the UK net-zero strategy in the next few months, which will include the UK greenhouse-gas removal strategy that we’re all eagerly waiting for. This will be particularly important in the run-up to COP26, because other countries will be looking to the UK to demonstrate that we can meet our ambitious targets. There will also be a new biomass strategy in 2022, which is crucial for ensuring that biomass CO2-removal will be sustainable and can sequester CO2 emissions over its whole life cycle.

For me personally, I’m pretty excited to be starting a new project as part of the UK greenhouse-gas removal research ‘Hub’, led by the University of Oxford, UK. There are five projects that aim to demonstrate and scale-up five different CO2-removal techniques; the ‘Hub’ will conduct research across the projects. In particular, I’m hoping we can come up with a way of objectively evaluating and comparing different CO2-removal proposals, across a whole range of dimensions including the social sciences, and that we can genuinely integrate processes for responsible innovation.

Finally, I’m excited to be starting the next phase of our work on enhanced weathering with the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation. Field trials are ongoing in several different countries; to better understand enhanced weathering and its potential contribution to climate mitigation we need data over longer time periods. My colleagues at Cardiff University will be working to understand public perceptions in Malaysia; currently, we know practically nothing about social science issues surrounding CO2-removal in non-Western countries.

 

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