Climate: the solution of the very last chance

We no longer have a choice. After attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (with little success), we will have to take a much more ambitious step. But decisive. That of the last chance: remove as quickly as possible CO₂ from the atmosphere. In short, carry out an emergency repair of the natural carbon cycle.

To emissions reduction and adaptation programs, this new strategic pillar must be added without delay: an artificial and massive removal of CO₂.

Direct removal is essential

This is the conclusion of one of the most renowned research centers on climate change, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Known for its work on planetary boundaries, the PIK believes we no longer have time to wait to repair the atmosphere and attempt to keep global warming within an acceptable risk range.

The deployment of new technologies, notably DAC (“Direct air capture”), that is processes that filter ambient air through enormous fan-vacuums such as those developed by the Swiss company Climeworks or that capture CO₂ flows at the exit of industrial installations, must be planned quickly. This will take time and cost a lot of money. But it is the last hope to stabilize the climate.

Time is running out

By 2050, we will need not only to reach net zero emissions, but also to remove about 20% of current annual emissions using natural techniques (reforestation, improving soil quality, adopting a vegetarian diet, etc.). And simultaneously move to the industrialization of highly technological solutions, such as DAC or the permanent sequestration of CO₂ from biomass (negative emissions).

The urgency is all the greater because scientific studies show that we will soon temporarily exceed the +1.5 °C limit (we are already facing a 1.2 °C warming in 2024).

According to the work of the PIK, presented at the climate conference in Baku, the costs induced by removing CO₂ from the atmosphere amount to… 2% of global GDP. It is a colossal effort but, as the researchers show, it is insignificant or almost so compared to the costs that climate change will cause in the absence of action.

They estimate that we could lose about 20% of global wealth, bringing the cost of the damages of a single ton of CO₂ to $1,000; to be compared with the €65 per ton of CO₂ traded between companies on the European market.

By that measure, a one-way Geneva-New York flight causes an economic damage of $2,000 per passenger, borne by society!

Exchange to finance the removal

According to the document from the PIK and the German development bank KfW, the financing of CO₂ removal cannot be borne by public funds alone. It is imperative to mobilize private capital, by encouraging companies to buy “CO₂ cleaning certificates” whose price would evolve in parallel with those of pollution permits (the emission quotas that companies trade, thus establishing a price per ton of CO₂).

The market for pollution rights, supposed to be at zero by 2039, would thus find an extension to finance the CO₂ removal phase, whose implementation would occur massively from 2050 onward. The certificate purchase exchange would finance the development of a new technological sector whose most ambitious target brings the price per ton of CO₂ to about $300 (DAC target in 2050).

“If we stimulate today the demand for CO₂ capture in this way, we will be able to bridge the valley of death between technical innovation and commercialization in the emerging CO₂ capture industry, which will have to operate at the gigaton scale by mid-century,” explains Ottmar Edenhofer, director of the PIK.

A new market for CO₂

In Baku, delegates at COP29 approved the UN's development of a framework better defining the contours of a “credible” new carbon market, avoiding the pitfalls of fake offsets or those that overestimate the impact of reforestation projects. Some multinationals, like Microsoft or JPMorgan, have already begun investing in direct CO₂ removal projects, anticipating a market that should reach around ten billion in a few years, before soaring if states manage to establish an attractive and robust institutional framework.

Of course, all this does not take into account the strong resistance of oil and gas producing countries, nor the irresponsible policy that Donald Trump is about to launch. One could easily conclude that a policy aimed at sequestering, valorizing or eliminating excess carbon from the atmosphere is doomed to fail. But that forgets that the large countries of the global South have every interest in a market that values the importance of their forests, the potential of biomass, not to mention the deserts and great plains that could host gigantic solar and wind farms to produce the electricity that will be necessary to power the highly technological CO₂ removal sector with green energy. Because a great deal of electricity will be needed.

Return of nuclear power

The British Academy of Sciences considers that the use of nuclear energy will be necessary and indispensable to close the loop of the new energy system. And it is probably the only route that will be profitable for this form of energy which will remain very expensive and controversial. In summary, to solve the climate crisis, we will have to reduce fossil energy consumption as quickly as possible, be frugal in the use of resources and invest massively in electrification to restore a natural carbon cycle compatible with a 1.5 °C warming.

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