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🇪🇺 The EU Commission is currently planning with around 120Mt of durable CDR in 2050. A jaw-dropping 333 page report by the th European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (hashtag#ESABCC) - an independent body providing all EU institutions with science based advice - is now suggesting we might need double that: between 233-256Mt.
Why such a huge difference? While both institutions roughly agree on the amount of residual emissions in 2050 (EU COM: 415Mt vs ESABCC: 391-446Mt), they strongly disagree on two things in particular:
1️⃣ The ESABCC assumes 65%-75% less point-source CCS than the EU Commission.
2️⃣ It also assumes 7% less LULUCF.
🤯 To me, this really highlights how tweaking a few assumptions (CCS & LULUCF) leads to utterly different scaling requirements for durable CDR. It shifts the CAGR needed in the EU until 2050 from 36% to 41%, a huge difference. The former will be tough, the latter next to impossible without significant policy support asap.
They then also analyse the potential of the leading durable removal approaches - a ranking quite different from what I have seen so far in the EU:
🏭 Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS): 150-250Mt/year
🪨 Biochar Carbon Removal (BCR): 70-200Mt/year
🚜 Enhanced Weathering (EW): 50-200Mt/year.
🌫️ Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS): 20-60Mt/year
🤑 To fund this scale-up, they estimate we will need €30-80 billion annual funding for CDR by 2050, equating to approximately 0.1-0.3% of the EU GDP. To give you a reference: the EU currently spends 0.8% of its GDP on environmental protection alone. To me, this number is lower than I would have expected.
💶 How much does this equate per ton of CDR? It’s hard to say, as the numbers include LULUCF and durable removals. But assuming a LULUCF cost of €50/t this would give us a durable CDR cost of €75-€275/t, a reasonable range and good indication of where we need to land to make CDR feasible at scale.
💚 Did I peak your interest? This is just the tip of the spear. The 333 page report has SO MUCH MORE interesting content to unpack.
🎙️ To do it, Eve Tamme and I will be hosting a CDR Policy Scoop here on LinkedIn Live coming Wednesday 4th of March at 6pm CET: https://lnkd.in/dGzRVEUp
🗣️ If you have read the report, let us know what stood out to you and/or how the stats above resonate with you.
Check out the full ESABCC report here: https://climate-advisory-board.europa.eu/news/new-report-from-the-eus-climate-advisory-board-outlines-recommendations-to-scale-up-carbon-dioxide-removals-while-addressing-opportunities-and-risks
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