Governments are largely focused on adding no further pollutants to the atmosphere. But we need to think about removing the carbon that’s already up there.
Celebrated economist Max Cordon once told me while I was studying for a PhD at the Australian National University that he had been pondering a problem for several days only to conclude that the answer was intuitively obvious. That’s what I concluded, too, when I pondered the world achieving net zero emissions by 2050: that this doesn’t make a bad situation better; it only stops making it worse.
The Glasgow meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement called on all countries to strengthen their 2030 targets by the end of this year to achieve the goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This will require achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
Limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees is essential but unless we’re okay about bequeathing future generations much more severe droughts, torrential rain, coastal inundation and human displacement, keeping it at this elevated level will be just the beginning of the decarbonisation task.
Yet governments are focused almost entirely on achieving net zero by 2050. It’s a good political goal against which a government’s success can be measured at election time. And it’s better than no goal. But there’s no penalty in the Paris Agreement for missing it, other than some opprobrium heaped on a ruling party some time in the in the 2040s.
Why can’t we do both at the same time: reduce emissions and extract carbon from the atmosphere?
To use the intuitively obvious bathtub analogy: if we don’t want the tub to overflow, we need both to turn down the tap and pull out the plug.
Indeed, some carbon extraction is occurring – but it is being used to offset rising emissions elsewhere, with no overall improvement. To be precise, data provided by the US space agency, NASA, indicates that since 2010 atmospheric concentrations of carbon have risen by 7.7 per cent.
For a longer-term perspective, consider this: in the pre-industrial period, before the 18th century, the highest estimated concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the last 800,000 years was 300 parts per million, around 330,000 years ago. Today it is 419 parts per million and still rising.
Humankind can’t wait until 2050 or beyond to reach zero net emissions before using carbon extraction to reduce global emissions.
A simplistic response by some has been to demand zero gross carbon emissions by 2050. That could be achieved if there no humans, no animals and no vegetation.
For those of us who prefer life on earth, humankind needs to accelerate the development and deployment of carbon-extraction technologies so that they can reduce net emissions and not just slow their rise.
These include reafforestation, mangrove restoration, carbon farming to store carbon in soil, carbon capture and storage, and direct air capture of carbon dioxide.
Reafforestation acts as a carbon sink, sucking carbon from the atmosphere. So, too, does the restoration of mangroves, an activity in which Australia could increasingly engage not just around our coastline but also with our Pacific Island neighbours.
The world has large numbers of depleted petroleum reservoirs, which are well suited to storing carbon. Australia’s depleted reservoirs, especially those close to modern infrastructure, offer for us a comparative advantage in carbon capture and storage.
A report on the energy demand and supply outlook for members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum finds that their Paris commitments cannot be met without the deployment of carbon capture and storage.
Carbon credits from these and other activities should not be used as a cheaper, more popular way for businesses to achieve their pledges of net zero emissions by 2050.
Instead, they should be used to offset emissions from activities that are very difficult to abate, such as the manufacture of steel, cement and chemicals.
Although they won’t be around in 2050, governments should now be clamping down on carbon emissions through means such as the Australian government’s Safeguard Mechanism and the European Union’s carbon price, while using taxpayers’ funds to incentivise the development at scale of carbon-extraction activities.
Australia’s system of carbon credits is being reviewed by an expert group chaired by former Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb. Our Australian Carbon Credit Units need to be of the highest integrity, maximising the returns to the generators of carbon offsets.
But if our carbon credits are used as the easy way for businesses to achieve net zero by 2050, we will run short of opportunities to move to the vital stage of reducing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.
Humankind cannot wait until 2050 to begin the task of carbon extraction. After thinking about that for some time, I have concluded that it is intuitively obvious.
Craig Emerson is managing director of Emerson Economics. He is director of the APEC Study Centre at RMIT University, visiting fellow at the ANU and adjunct professor at Victoria University’s College of Business.