The company has agreed to pay British project developer UNDO to take around 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere – about 0.02% of the airline’s current annual emissions – through a form of carbon removal known as “enhanced weathering”.

Weathering is the natural process of rocks decomposing and converting carbon dioxide into solids and liquids. Enhanced weathering is when this natural process is artificially sped up by spreading ground-up rock on land, shorelines or in the ocean.

British Airways’ sustainability director Carrie Harris said carbon removals like this “form a key part of our roadmap to reach our climate goals”, adding that though the firm’s initial purchase was “relatively small, the partnership hopes to demonstrate the art of the possible and unlock future investment in carbon removals”.

Standard Chartered bank provided debt financing for UNDO to scale up its activities, and CFC provided insurance for the deal.

Most technology to cut aviation emissions directly is expensive, speculative or problematic, while sustainable aviation fuels are costly and in short supply. As a result – and with the industry and governments generally unwilling to reduce flight numbers – a large chunk of airlines’ green strategies counts on carbon removal technologies.

In 2022, transport ministers around the world agreed an “aspirational goal” for the international aviation industry to reach net zero by 2050.

The British government’s “Jet Zero Strategy” to get UK aviation to net zero by 2050 plans to achieve about a third of the industry’s emissions reductions through carbon removals.

British Airways projects that its own emissions will be higher in 2050 than in 2020, even with more efficient flying and sustainable aviation fuel. But it plans to still reach net zero emissions in 2050 by investing in carbon removal projects and buying carbon offsets.

Experts have questioned the legitimacy of some of the carbon credits previously purchased by the firm. A government official in Peru claimed in an investigation by Unearthed, Greenpeace UK’s journalism unit, that a forest protection project funded by British Airways over-estimated how much danger the forest was in – and therefore how much greenhouse gas was prevented from being released into the atmosphere.

More broadly, academics at the University of California Berkeley found last year that clean cooking projects, another type of carbon offset bought by British Airways, deliver only a fraction of the emissions reductions they advertise.

Jim Mann, the founder of UNDO, said in a statement that the aviation industry “will require large amounts of high-quality carbon removal to meet their net zero commitments” and that deals like the one with British Airways are needed to scale up the market.

He added that enhanced rock weathering is “one of the most robust carbon dioxide removal solutions available today because it is permanent, highly scalable and provides a host of co-benefits” – including better soil.

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Scientists working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, however, reported in 2022 that enhanced weathering is expensive due to the costs of mining, transport and disposal, and requires a lot of energy to grind up the rocks. Deployment at scale may require decades, they added.

While the technique has the positive side-effect of improving soil quality, the IPCC scientists found it can also have negative impacts caused by mining for the rocks and contamination of air and water.

A briefing by researchers for the UK parliament warned that if the technology were to take off, “there would likely be adverse environmental impacts due to the extent of quarrying required, such as destruction of habitats, noise, water and air pollution.”

(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)

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In a briefing note, unnamed authors from the UN’s climate body (UNFCCC) said these removal activities are “technologically and economically unproven, especially at scale, and pose unknown environmental and social risks”. It concludes they are therefore not suitable for offsetting carbon emissions under the upcoming UN’s global scheme.

The UN assessment has angered the growing industry, which is seeing billions of dollars of investment from governments and corporations.

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More than 100 figures from the carbon removal industry signed a letter addressed to the UN body asking it not to rule out any specific activity, but to “let science, innovation, and the market compete to deliver the solutions”.

Crunch meeting

The document will inform discussions taking place next week in the German city of Bonn to set up a new global carbon trading system under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

A UN panel is tasked with drafting the rules and indicating which activities should be eligible. It is taking into consideration both land-based solutions, like tree planting, and technological ones, such as using machines to pull CO2 directly out of the air.

The process is being closely watched as the inclusion of certain technologies over others could have far-reaching consequences for the development of the sector.

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Campaigners have raised concerns over the technical challenges of deploying these solutions and the potential risks to human rights.

But Ben Rubin, from the Carbon Business Council, told Climate Home News that leaving any carbon removal pathway off the table risks creating challenges to have the scale of climate impact that is needed.

Carbon removals role

As the world fails to curb the rise of polluting emissions, most scientists see some form of carbon removal as necessary to limit the impact of climate change.

The IPCC said the use of carbon removal is “unavoidable” to offset hard-to-abate emissions and achieve net zero. But how to achieve that result is the subject of intense debate.

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At the moment land-based solutions, such as planting trees or preventing them from being cut down, account for 99.9% of all CO2 removed from the atmosphere.

But several governments, like the US, and companies are betting big on technological fixes.

The most prominent ones are Direct Air Capture (DAC) and Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). The first technology uses big machines to pull carbon dioxide directly out of the air and store it underground.

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The second one relies on trapping emissions produced through the generation of biomass energy. Its proponents describe it as carbon-negative because it permanently locks away the CO2 trees used as biomass will have absorbed in their lifetime.

Multi-billion dollar bet

The industry believes it can scale up rapidly thanks to large-scale investment pouring into the sector.

The US government committed $3.7 billion towards the development of DAC. Major corporations are signing deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars to buy vast amounts of tech-based carbon removals as a way to offset their own emissions.

The industry also hopes to be supported by the creation of a new global carbon market. As part of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the new system will allow governments, companies and individuals to buy UN-certified credits, funneling money towards climate projects.

A supervisory committee is currently working out the complex details of how this mechanism will work, including the eligibility of certain projects.

In its briefing note, the UNFCCC said activities like DAC or BECCS are not fit for the purposes of Article 6.

Currently costly

Without going into details, it argues they are too costly, are not suitable for developing countries, and do not contribute to sustainable development.

The UN based its views on scientific papers and on submissions received by industry players and campaigners.

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The International Energy Agency estimates that removing a ton of carbon dioxide costs between $135 and $135 with DAC today – although this could drop to below $100 by 2030.

According to the IPCC scientists, this is far more expensive than reducing emissions with renewable energy or energy efficiency.

Human rights risks

A recent study cited in the brief argues that the large-scale deployment of carbon removal technologies may lead to “significant human rights infringements”.

The risk may be particularly acute with BECCS which, to operate at scale, would require a vast amount of land and water to be converted from food production to growing biomass.

This will “most likely infringe upon the right to food, the right to water, and the right to a healthy environment”, the authors said.

The study found DAC would “likely have a smaller human rights impact” than BECCS. It doesn’t incentivise anything to be grown. But, as it requires a lot of energy, large-scale use of DAC could take electricity away from other uses.

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The UN document does not spell out why these carbon removal technologies do not contribute to sustainable development and the industry disputed this.

“We would be pleased to connect you with carbon removal leaders advancing projects in Kenya, Kiribati, India, Brazil and other locations around the world where CDR is contributing directly to local regional economic development”, their letter said.

The Center for International Environmental Law called carbon removal “a dangerous distraction”. The NGO argued that relying on removal technology, “both delays the immediate reduction of emissions and presents independent risks to human rights and the environment, some of which remain poorly understood”.

The post UN advises against offsets for carbon removal technologies appeared first on Climate Home News.

Fossil fuel companies Total, Ineos and Wintershall DEA will try to store millions of tons of carbon dioxide in the sandstone of old oil and gas reservoirs in the North Sea.

Danish environment minister Lars Aagaard said: “This is not just a step towards a new green industry in our North Sea – it’s a milestone for our green transition.”

To start with, the companies will store carbon dioxide which has been captured from industrial sources like cement and steel companies and power plants.

By offsetting emissions, this will help Denmark reach net zero – when it emits no more greenhouse gases than it sucks up.

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The government is also funding research into direct air capture, where carbon dioxide is sucked out of the air rather than from smokestacks. In theory, this can lead to negative emissions.

In December, the Danish government moved its net zero target from 2050 to 2045 and added a new target to reduce emissions by 110% between 1990 and 2050.

Mattias Söderberg, chief climate adviser at the DanChurchAid campaign group, told Climate Home: “In a long perspective it is good if Denmark can become carbon negative. That will be needed, to keep CO2 in the atmosphere on a sustainable level. However, that is a long term approach, and Denmark should still focus on how to reduce emissions in the coming years.”

Denmark has some of the highest historic emissions per person in the world. Its government is leading a push for countries to stop producing fossil fuels.

Expensive way to clean up

According to the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC), it is more expensive to avoid emissions through capturing and storing carbon dioxide (CCS) rather than investing in renewables or switching to electric vehicles. But CCS is a way to reduce emissions from sectors which are hard to clean up – like steel, cement and chemicals.

In 2022, the IPCC said capturing and storing a ton of CO2 costs between $50 and $100. Even at this high price, some academics think it is worth it.

While the US government currently says that each tonne of carbon dioxide does $51 of damage to society, a recent study in Nature magazine put the figure at around $185 worth of damage to society, making investing in CCS value for money compared to not doing so.

As shipping the gas is expensive, storing it onshore is generally cheaper but more politically controversial as local communities are likely to object to the pipelines and drilling.

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A spokesperson for Ineos told Climate Home the company weren’t making public the estimated cost of storing the CO2. He said carbon capture and storage was at an early stage of development and the company was working to bring the costs down.

In December 2020, the Danish government allocated DKK197 million ($25m) to the development and demonstration of CO2 storage in the North Sea.

The government wants the three projects to store 13 million tons of carbon dioxide a year from 2030 onwards. It estimates its depleted North Sea oilfields could store 22 billion tons in total, equivalent to over 500 years worth of Denmark’s current emissions.

Direct air capture

The costs of extracting carbon dioxide from the air, rather than from a smokestack, are even higher and the technology at an even earlier stage.

It’s more expensive because the air is less polluted and therefore more energy is required to suck out the same amount of carbon dioxide.

Scientists have estimated the cost at anywhere between $60 a ton and $1,000 a ton, with less evidence at the cheaper end.

With the world on course to warm up by more than 1.5C, the IPCC’s scientists predict that carbon removal is likely to be necessary to reduce global warming, particularly in the second half of the century.

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