Ahead of the November 2016 climate convention in Marrakesh (COP22), Fern released ‘Going Negative – how carbon sinks could cost the earth,’ at an event hosted by the Commission’s DG for International Cooperation and Development (recording here).

‘Going Negative’ investigates negative emissions, the new climate fad, which refers to the removal of carbon from the atmosphere. Scientists claim that large scale negative emissions are necessary to have a chance of limiting warming to below 2° Celsius – even more so for 1.5° C. Simply: we are burning too much CO₂ and national plans to reduce emissions are too little, too late. The author of the report, journalist Fred Pearce, warns that efforts to remove emissions already in the atmosphere cannot replace immediate reductions in new emissions. He also concludes that community consent and participation are the touchstones of success in achieving forest-based negative emissions.

The problem with more high-tech ideas about emissions’ removals is that no one is sure how to make them a reality. One option, ‘bioenergy carbon capture and storage’ (BECCS), is to capture carbon dioxide from energy plants and bury it underground. The scale on which this would be needed – an area of land the size of the US just to grow the biomass – would involve a land grab of a size never seen before: a human rights calamity, with major implications for food security and biodiversity.

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