Authored by Allison Tennant, Project Assistant, Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy & Union of Concerned Scientists
Two years ago, The Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy (ICR) convened a group of representatives from over 20 national environmental groups at the Wingspread Center in Racine, WI. The goal was to spark and facilitate an ongoing sharing of perspectives and resources about carbon removal. Space was created for meeting attendees to probe various carbon removal approaches and issues, with the intent that information and findings from the meeting would inform exploration of carbon removal in their home institutions.
Now, ICR has partnered with the Union of Concerned Scientists for a new and newly imagined round of work with the NGO community. In my new position, created with the kind support of the New York Community Trust, I will be reconvening the group that gathered at Wingspread and working with them to imagine and promote a more just, equitable, and inclusive understandings of carbon removal. We will be seeking to expand the carbon removal conversation to draw on the knowledge, interests, and perspectives of a wider array of voices, recognizing that different carbon removal approaches are poised to have implications across a diverse set of sectors and communities.
As the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C makes clear, carbon removal will need to be a part of the approach to keeping warming under 1.5°C; emissions reductions alone will no longer be enough. Governments and companies must now make large investments in R,D&D of carbon removal approaches to get technologies up to scale. Just as importantly, we need robust forms of evaluation and assessment of carbon removal options to ensure that any developments in this fast-moving field are attending to social and environmental imperatives. Careful evaluation of what carbon removal can and can’t do won’t happen without increased attention by civil society actors.
With an upcoming US presidential election, there is an opportunity for increased funding towards carbon removal, but there are also equity issues and guardrails to be considered. Over the next weeks and months, we’ll be working with the Wingspread group and an expanding set of civil society actors to find out what carbon removal questions still need to be addressed and work with them to try to figure out answers. They don’t all have to be on the same page, but the dialogue will help expose existing issues and workshop potential solutions. It’s going to be a big project, and I’m excited to see what will come out of it.
If you’re interested in finding out more about this new joint project between the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy and the Union of Concerned Scientists, please contact me: ATennant@ucsusa.org.