The making of zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will require the elimination of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to the intergovernmental climate change panel, the first global authority on the subject. But only certain types of carbon elimination are really effective – and these are not largely the genre in which large companies invest.
A new report from the NewClimate Institute, a European reflection group, notes that 35 of the largest companies in the world are looking at the planting of short -term trees and other forms of carbon elimination “no” in order to say that they have neutralized part of their climate pollution. The handful of companies investing in the more reliable elimination of carbon do not do so for the most part in conjunction with Deep decarurationOr the completely elimination of carbon emissions.
There is a “dangerous discrepancy between corporate climate complaints and the reality of what is necessary to reach the global net-zero,” the organization said in a press release. Reaching net -zero in the middle of the century – a scenario where all the climate pollution of inevitable human origin is canceled by elimination of carbon – is considered to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees fahrenheit).
The elimination of carbon dioxide, or CDR, refers to efforts to capture CO2 after being issued in the atmosphere and store it in rocks, land, ocean reservoirs or products manufactured by humans. The most reliable types of elimination of carbon, which NewClimate Institute calls “sustainable CDR”, implies injecting carbon into geological formations or transforming it into rocks, where it will remain in place for at least 1000 years – about time as CO2 of the fossil fuels fire will remain in the atmosphere.
Currently, these sustainable techniques do not work on a large scale: they represent only 0.1% of the global carbon elimination each year. The rest is based on methods such as planting trees, restoration of wetlands and carbon burial in the ground, which are much cheaper but can only keep carbon out of the atmosphere than for decades or a few centuries at most.
Government investments and regulations are necessary to increase the sustainable CDR – experts consider that the next decade is “crucial” to develop technology – but the private sector can also help by funding sustainable CDR projects and research. In sectors such as construction, for which total decarbonization is not yet possible, companies will probably have to use sustainable CDR to compensate for residual emissions in the context of a credible climate strategy.
The authors of the NewClimate Institute examined 35 of the world’s largest companies in seven sectors: Agrifood, Aviation, Automobiles, Mode, Fossil fuels, technology and public services. Technological companies have shown the most investment in sustainable CDR – Microsoft alone is responsible for 70% of all durable CDRs ever contracted – but the sector criticizes the sector for planning to claim “potentially significant amounts” of sustainable and unsustainable CDR to zero net targets. Technological companies can decarbonize completely without compensation, so that their emission objectives should not depend on the elimination of carbon.
Aviation was the other sector showing the largest support for the sustainable CDR, but only one airline – All Nippon Airways in Japan – had a “reasonable” plan to use technology to neutralize residual emissions by 2050. Three airlines lacked concrete plans.
Of the 15 companies in the food, automotive and fashion sectors, only H&M and Stellantis invest in the sustainable CDR. Two of the five public services of the report, Eon and Orsted, support sustainable CDR projects, but it is not clear if Eon intends to use eliminations to count for its net-zero objective, and the NewClimate Institute says that some of the eliminations of Orsted are double accounting in the targets of reduction of emissions of Dank and Microsoft. The five fossil fuels companies analyzed – Equinor, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Sinopec and Totorlengies – mainly focus on Carbon capture and storageWho intercepts the CO2 at the point of emission, before it escapes in the atmosphere, and does not reduce the concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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Silke Mooldijk, an expert from the NewClimate Institute and the main author of the new report, said that it was not surprised to find limited support for the sustainable CDR, except with certain technological companies. What surprised him is that companies that invest in sustainable CDR projects have not reported any publicly information on the environmental and social risks of these projects. Certain CDR methods, for example, may compromise biodiversity, while others require large amounts of renewable energy which should be diverted from other uses. “Not a single company in our report has only revealed the details of the potential risks of the projects they support and how they reduce them,” Mooldijk told Grist.
Grist contacted the 35 companies included in the report. Adidas, Amazon, Enel, Google, H&M, Inditex, Microsoft and Totalengies responded by describing their zero net commitments. Adidas and Enel, which do not currently invest in the sustainable CDR, said they would use “high quality” carbon eliminations to compensate for their residual climate pollution after taking measures to decarbonize; Inditex said that it “explores” the sustainable CDR to compensate for residual emissions, and its use of technology “will be determined by the evolution of reference scientific frameworks”.
A new alliance for the elimination of “high quality” carbon highlights tensions in industry
Amazon, Google, Microsoft and H&M are currently investing in the sustainable CDR. A spokesperson for H&M has described the purchase of 10,000 metrics of sustainable CDR from the Swiss company ClineWorks, one of the biggest purchases to date, and said that H&M planned to use them to neutralize residual emissions. Technological companies have claimed their commitment to first reduce emissions, and then use the suppression of carbon to compensate for residual emissions, although none of them responds to the concerns of NewClimate Institute according to which they would use large quantities of sustainable CDR and not a victim to claim progress towards Net-Zero.
A declaration provided to Grist de Totalennergies did not address CDR. Rather, he described the support of the company for the capture and storage of carbon and “nature -based solutions”. The latter refers to short -term offsets, such as planting trees, that the NewClimate Institute does not think is appropriate to compensate for fossil fuel emissions.
Apple, Duke Energy and Shein refused to comment after seeing the report. The 24 remaining companies have not responded to requests from Grist.
Jonathan Overpeck, air conditioning at the University of Michigan and Dean of his school for the environment and sustainability, said that the NewClimate Institute report was appropriate. “Right now, the idea of CDR … is a kind of Far West scene, with many actors promising to do things that may or not be possible,” he said. He added that companies seem to use CDR as an alternative to the attenuation of their climate pollution.
“Priority must be to reduce emissions, not on the sustainable CDR at this stage,” he told Grist.
In the short term, the sustainable CDR does practically nothing to compensate for emissions. In 2023, only 0.0023 CO2 gigagatons were removed from the atmosphere each year using these methods. This represents approximately 15,000 times less than the annual amount of climate pollution of fossil fuels and cement manufacturing.
According to the NewClimate Institute, voluntary initiatives do not replace the objectives and investments in reducing emissions forced by the government and investments in the sustainable CDR. Insofar as these initiatives exist, however, the organization says that it should provide a clearer definition of what constitutes “sustainable” elimination of carbon; Determine business responsibility for increasing sustainable CDR according to their current and historical emissions, or – perhaps more realistic – of their ability to pay; And oblige companies to set separate objectives for emission reductions and support for the sustainable CDR. The latest recommendation aims to strengthen a climate action hierarchy which puts attenuation before compensation. Companies should not “hide inaction on decarbonization behind investments in moves”, as the report says.
Mooldijk said voluntary initiatives can encourage investments in the sustainable CDR by recognizing “climatic contributions”. These could manifest themselves as simple declarations on the monetary contributions of companies to the sustainable CDR, instead of complaints on the amount of CO2 that they have theoretically neutralized.
Some of these recommendations have been submitted earlier this year at the initiative of science -based targets, the most respected auditor in the world of climatic targets in the private sector. The organization is preparing to update its net-zero business standard with new advice on the use of CDR. Another standard, the international organization for standardization, is also preparing to publish new standards on Net-Zero, which could reduce some of the most questionable corporate climate claims while stimulating support for the sustainable CDR.
John Reilly, a lecturer emeritus at MIT Sloan School of Management, said that in the end, appropriate regulation of corporate climate commitments – including sustainable CDR – will be of governments. Companies “are happy to throw some money in these things,” he said, “but I don’t think that the voluntary directives will never go there.”
Correction:: A previous version of this story indicated to incorrect that Google had not responded to the report.
