Negative emission technologies : What role in meeting Paris Agreement targets? / EASAC, European Academies Science Advisory Council, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina ; Thierry Courvoisier

Abstract

Climate scenarios that keep global warming within Paris Agreement limits rely on large-scale application of technologies that can remove CO2 from the air on a huge scale. This is necessary to compensate for the inadequacy of currently planned mitigation measures, which would lead to cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) overshooting the levels that are compatible with avoiding dangerous climate change. The credibility of such scenarios needs to be properly assessed since relying on such technologies to compensate later for failures to adequately mitigate emissions has serious implications for future generations.