{"id":389,"date":"2023-10-12T14:13:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T19:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/?p=389"},"modified":"2023-10-18T13:37:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T18:37:28","slug":"carbon-removal-meets-environmental-justice-a-fellows-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/2023\/10\/12\/carbon-removal-meets-environmental-justice-a-fellows-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Carbon Removal Meets Environmental Justice: A Fellow\u2019s Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authored by Jake Ferrell<\/a>, Carbon Justice Fellow at the National Wildlife\u00a0 Federation<\/a><\/p>\n

Set up in their on-site warehouse, company leadership gathered perhaps fifty people, myself included, around a large presentation screen to show what went into building and deploying their climate-saving direct air capture (DAC) technology. They presented their aims, a polished pitch: DAC modules widely deployed with low-costs, at commercial scale, and located in the desert somewhere so it wouldn\u2019t bother anyone. A hand shot up \u2013\u00a0had they considered the environmental justice (EJ) dimensions of their projects?<\/em>\u00a0Doubts were voiced that projects would, in reality, be located so far away from communities, let alone sensitive wildlife and ecosystems. The question was shouted, barely audible in the cacophonous mechanical environment. \u201cWe didn\u2019t think about that yet,\u201d company leadership replied. \u201cWe\u2019ve been focused on the engineering of building a DAC plant.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Carbon Removal Justice Fellows meet with members of the Senate Budget Committee on Capitol Hill. Photo credit: Jake Ferrell<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Carbon Removal Justice Fellowship was created to center equity and justice considerations in carbon removal policy. National Wildlife Federation partnered with\u00a0American University\u2019s Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy<\/a>\u00a0to co-run the program. The fellowship\u2019s creators saw an opportunity to gather a diverse group of talented people to meet at the intersections of environmental justice and carbon removal in order to facilitate important conversations on how to avoid this industry becoming another harmful iteration of the status quo. The fellowship\u2019s inaugural cohort was made up of folks working in environmental law, community advocacy for frontline communities, clean water, decarbonizing heavy industry, carbon removal social science, and more.<\/p>\n

What is Carbon Dioxide Removal?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR)<\/a>\u00a0is a strategy whereby CO2<\/sub>\u00a0is removed directly from the ambient air and sequestered in a form that prevents it from re-entering the atmosphere. CDR addresses the climate crisis by targeting excess atmospheric CO2<\/sub>, a result of societal industrialization. Examples of CDR range from natural solutions like reforestation to more technological processes like\u00a0DAC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Fellows meet with representative offices on Capitol Hill. Photo credit: Jake Ferrell<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Centering Environmental Justice in Carbon Dioxide Removal<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The potential benefits of CDR include the prospect of addressing legacy emissions, and the ability to make room for self-determined development in places that might require steel, concrete, or other emissions-generating industries during the energy transition. The growing CDR industry, however, still has a series of challenges to grapple with regarding its energy demands, water use, climate-relevant scalability, economic cost, and transportation of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0from capture to sequestration sites. Additionally,\u00a0this sector<\/a>\u00a0cannot afford to ignore the country\u2019s long-standing\u00a0legacy of racist pollution<\/a>,\u00a0siting injustices<\/a>, and\u00a0undelivered promises<\/a>. Projects and communities are always inextricably intertwined, both economically and environmentally, so projects need to incorporate environmental justice considerations such as\u00a0self-determination, informed consent, and mutual respect<\/a>\u00a0from the early planning stages of a project.<\/p>\n

But environmental justice is more than listed principles \u2013 it is an active and variable movement with many facets, so it is vital that as the carbon removal sector experiences rapid growth, justice, conservation, and labor voices claim a seat at the table to be heard. Thus far, many active EJ organizations have been\u00a0understandably critical<\/a>\u00a0of CDR conversations that do not appear to take seriously the social implications and historical legacies of adding more industrial projects in their communities. There is a risk that carbon removal provides an excuse for\u00a0mitigation deterrence<\/a>, or the postponing of society\u2019s\u00a0necessary transition away from fossil fuels<\/a>. Many in the Carbon Removal Justice Fellowship carried forward this skeptical EJ ethos into conversations in the CDR space.<\/p>\n

Urging the Industry to Consider its Impacts<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The eleven Fellows managed to visit Washington, D.C., New York, NY, Laramie, WY, and Denver, CO within a packed 15 days in July. We talked to folks at organizations like the BlueGreen Alliance, Carbon180, Carbon Business Council, US Department of Energy, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and World Resources Institute to name a few. The Fellows also spent two days engaging in CDR conversations on Capitol Hill. In my view, our purpose \u2013 the red thread guiding us through our manifold meetings \u2013 was to hold space, to parse through some of the complex issues at the intersections of EJ and CDR, and to challenge existing perceptions. In this last aspect we were especially successful, and success in this instance often meant tension and uncomfortable exchanges. But tension is often necessary for progress, and many participants across the program appreciated our candor.<\/p>\n

Some of the Fellows\u2019 recurring questions from the duration of the program include:\u00a0What does it mean to center environmental justice in relation to carbon removal? What does it look like for a project to get enthusiastic consent from a community? How are a project\u2019s community benefits determined, and who gets to make those decisions? What does an A+ on a project\u2019s environmental justice and community benefits scorecard look like? How do we move from well-intentioned plans to legally enforceable agreements? Who is accountable to whom, and where does the buck stop?<\/em><\/p>\n

While historic policy related to carbon removal has been passed and big announcements like the\u00a0$1.2 billion dollars for DOE\u2019s DAC Hubs<\/a>\u00a0continue to roll out, the Carbon Removal Justice Fellows will continue to wrestle with these questions and others in the weeks and months to come. Those two weeks in the July heat mark the beginning of our ongoing engagement with carbon removal and environmental justice.<\/p>\n

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Photo credit: Jake Ferrell<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Such an impactful group could not have come together without Dr. Simone H. Stewart and Shannon Heyck-Williams at the National Wildlife Federation, and Dr. Simon Nicholson and Jenn Brown at the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University, most of whom participated alongside the cohort during the fellowship.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authored by Jake Ferrell, Carbon Justice Fellow at the National Wildlife\u00a0 Federation Set up in their on-site warehouse, company leadership gathered perhaps fifty people, myself included, around a large presentation screen to show what went into building and deploying their climate-saving direct air capture (DAC) technology. They presented their aims, a polished pitch: DAC modules … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Carbon Removal Meets Environmental Justice: A Fellow\u2019s Perspective”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[48,51,53,52],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post","category-uncategorized","tag-carbon-removal","tag-environmental-justice","tag-equity","tag-fellowship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.american.edu\/carbonremoval\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}