Adaptation and Carbon Removal

Abstract

Carbon dioxide removal and climate change adaptation are rarely analyzed together, yet it is critical to consider the interactions between these forms of climate response. We identify ways to foreground adaptation in carbon removal policies and project designs and to incorporate carbon removal into adaptation efforts. Attempts at aligning adaptation and carbon removal may genuinely increase adaptive capacity or introduce new vulnerabilities, depending on policy and project design. Based upon four case studies of addressing adaptation needs with adaptive carbon removal, we find that effective implementation is likely to hinge upon predictable climate policy, innovative technical policies such as rigorous life-cycle assessment, and project design with local ecological conditions in mind. We propose three simple principles for integrating carbon removal and adaptation: identify opportunities for adaptive carbon removal in planning, prioritize adaptive value of projects, and give credit for carbon removed. Carbon dioxide removal and climate change adaptation are rarely analyzed together, yet it is critical to consider the interactions between these forms of climate response. We identify ways to foreground adaptation in carbon removal policies and project designs and to incorporate carbon removal into adaptation efforts. Attempts at aligning adaptation and carbon removal may genuinely increase adaptive capacity or introduce new vulnerabilities, depending on policy and project design. Based upon four case studies of addressing adaptation needs with adaptive carbon removal, we find that effective implementation is likely to hinge upon predictable climate policy, innovative technical policies such as rigorous life-cycle assessment, and project design with local ecological conditions in mind. We propose three simple principles for integrating carbon removal and adaptation: identify opportunities for adaptive carbon removal in planning, prioritize adaptive value of projects, and give credit for carbon removed. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is increasingly joining mitigation and adaptation in the climate response portfolio. Significant amounts of carbon removal will be necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C, through a diverse suite of approaches, some of which are ready to deploy today and others that could be ready to deploy on a large scale by mid-century.1Masson-Delmotte V. Zhai P. Pörtner H.O. Roberts D. Skea J. Shukla P.R. Pirani A. Moufouma-Okia W. Péan C. Pidcock R. Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C above Pre-industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty. IPCC, 2018https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/download/Google Scholar Most scenarios for achieving 2°C also rely on large-scale carbon removal.2Minx J.C. Lamb W.F. Callaghan M.W. Fuss S. Hilaire J. Creutzig F. Amann T. Beringer T. de Oliveira Garcia W. Hartmann J. et al.Negative emissions—part 1: research landscape and synthesis.Environ. Res. Lett. 2018; 13: 063001Crossref Scopus (281) Google Scholar Many nations, such as the United Kingdom and France, have set net-zero emissions targets, with over 60 countries pledging to do so; the state of California has also set a target of carbon neutrality by 2045, and countries such as Sweden are explicitly adopting the goal of being carbon-negative. To rapidly achieve net zero, most scenarios assume some removal capacity to compensate for residual emissions from sectors that are deemed difficult to mitigate.1Masson-Delmotte V. Zhai P. Pörtner H.O. Roberts D. Skea J. Shukla P.R. Pirani A. Moufouma-Okia W. Péan C. Pidcock R. Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C above Pre-industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty. IPCC, 2018https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/download/Google Scholar As CDR increasingly becomes an imperative, with maturing approaches entering early-stage deployment, scientists and analysts have begun to explore interactions between carbon removal and mitigation, including whether carbon removal will deter mitigation,3Cox E.M. Pidgeon N. Spence E. Thomas G. Blurred lines: the ethics and policy of greenhouse gas removal at scale.Front. Environ. Sci. 2018; 6: 38Crossref Scopus (27) Google Scholar, 4McLaren D.P. Tyfield D.P. Willis R. Szerszynski B. Markusson N.O. Beyond “net-zero”: a case for separate targets for emissions reduction and negative emissions.Front. Clim. 2019; 1: 4Crossref Scopus (55) Google Scholar, 5Carton W. “Fixing” climate change by mortgaging the future: negative emissions, spatiotemporal fixes, and the political economy of delay.Antipode. 2019; 51: 750-769Crossref Scopus (34) Google Scholar, 6Markusson N. McLaren D. Tyfield D. 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We lack both generalized theory on these interactions and specific case studies through which to examine them. Possible reasons for this lacuna include: (1) the scholarly communities studying carbon removal and mitigation may be closer, as researchers of “deep decarbonization,” than the communities studying carbon removal and adaptation; (2) many carbon removal technologies are immature, leaving a limited evidence base for understanding carbon removal-adaptation interactions; and (3) deterrence effects are more obvious between carbon removal and mitigation than with adaptation. Moreover, in some cases, papers that explore the practices and synergies may not use the terminology of carbon removal or adaptation, focusing on single strategies such as soil carbon sequestration or groupings such as natural climate solutions, rather than umbrella terminology.14Beasley E. Murray L.S. Funk J. Lujan B. Kasprzyk K. Burns D. Guide to Including Nature in Nationally Determined Contributions.2019https://www.nature.org/content/dam/tnc/nature/en/documents/Guide_to_Including_Nature_in_NDCs.pdf%20Google Scholar Consideration of carbon removal and adaptation together is currently limited to two places: the discussion of “ecosystem-based adaptation,” in which ecological processes and habitats are sustainably managed as part of adaptation strategies,15Munang R. Andrews J. Alverson K. Mebratu D. Harnessing ecosystem-based adaptation to address the social dimensions of climate change.Environ. Sci. Policy Sustain. Dev. 2014; 56: 18-24Crossref Scopus (27) Google Scholar,16Doswald N. Munroe R. Roe D. Giuliani A. Castelli I. Stephens J. Möller I. Spencer T. Vira B. Reid H. Effectiveness of ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation: review of the evidence-base.Clim. Dev. 2014; 6: 185-201Crossref Scopus (97) Google Scholar and the discussion of social “co-benefits” of carbon removal techniques,17Cox E. Edwards N.R. Beyond carbon pricing: policy levers for negative emissions technologies.Clim. Policy. 2019; 19: 1144-1156Crossref Scopus (24) Google Scholar,18Beerling D.J. Enhanced rock weathering: biological climate change mitigation with co-benefits for food security?.Biol. Lett. 2017; 13: 20170149Crossref Scopus (13) Google Scholar of which adaptation could be one. These publications—which are often searching for “win-win” situations19Woroniecki S. Wamsler C. Boyd E. The promises and pitfalls of ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change as a vehicle for social empowerment.Ecol. Soc. 2019; 24: art4Crossref Scopus (23) Google Scholar—are informative, but do not explore the full range of interactions between the two responses. As the field of carbon removal advances, a systematic framework for exploring carbon removal-adaptation interactions is needed. There are important reasons for both science and policy to consider carbon removal and adaptation together at this moment. Perhaps the most important benefit of joint analysis is that the literature on adaptation emphasizes the social aspects of climate response, which are often missing from analyses of the technical potentials of carbon removal. Vulnerability analysis considers why people are at risk, which draws attention to social conditions—conditions that would also influence and be influenced by carbon removal deployment. Evaluating carbon removal within adaptation frameworks can help clarify the social contexts of carbon removal technologies and aid in formulating policy for carbon removal that addresses existing and new vulnerabilities. Right now, there are calls to research a portfolio of carbon removal techniques,2Minx J.C. Lamb W.F. Callaghan M.W. Fuss S. Hilaire J. Creutzig F. Amann T. Beringer T. de Oliveira Garcia W. Hartmann J. et al.Negative emissions—part 1: research landscape and synthesis.Environ. Res. Lett. 2018; 13: 063001Crossref Scopus (281) Google Scholar,20Hilaire J. Minx J.C. Callaghan M.W. Edmonds J. Luderer G. Nemet G.F. Rogelj J. del Mar Zamora M. Negative emissions and international climate goals—learning from and about mitigation scenarios.Clim. Change. 2019; 157: 189-219Crossref Scopus (35) Google Scholar yet it is not clear how each approach will fit into this portfolio, or which technologies and practices are included. Scholarship on the interactions with adaptation can help inform the design of this portfolio and aid in anticipatory governance. In this Perspective, we aim to establish a framework for future research on the interactions between carbon removal and adaptation. We make recommendations for when and how to pursue adaptive carbon removal, meaning practices that remove carbon from the atmosphere while providing adaptation benefits and reducing vulnerability. Note that whether adaptive carbon removal activities can be considered as providing “negative emissions” or contributing toward “climate-restorative” adaptation goals depends on particular design choices, such as the life-cycle analysis of particular projects.21Tanzer S.E. Ramírez A. When are negative emissions negative emissions?.Energy Environ. Sci. 2019; 12: 1210-1218Crossref Google Scholar As our recommendations emphasize, just because an adaptation project is carbon-negative does not mean that communities or policymakers ought to prefer it over another project that reduces vulnerability more effectively. Adaptation was not always a pillar of climate response. Like carbon removal, adaptation was initially viewed as marginal in climate policy, until the implications of not meeting mitigation goals became increasingly clear. Adaptation was slow to be discussed in the first decade of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, as it was seen to carry the risk of substituting for mitigation. In the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report, in 1990, the focus was on vulnerability, framed primarily in terms of exposure to impacts on particular sectors.22Thomas K. Hardy R.D. Lazrus H. Mendez M. Orlove B. Rivera-Collazo I. Roberts J.T. Rockman M. Warner B.P. Winthrop R. Explaining differential vulnerability to climate change: a social science review.Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change. 2019; 10: e565Crossref Scopus (141) Google Scholar In the early 2000s, the focus shifted from vulnerability (cause-focused) to adaptation (response-focused). Adaptation was defined in 2001 by the IPCC as “adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.”23Cooper R.N. Houghton J.T. McCarthy J.J. Metz B. Climate change 2001: the scientific basis.Foreign Aff. 2002; 81: 208Google Scholar It only became an equal pillar to mitigation as part of a “framework” in 2007 and beyond.24Persson Å. Global adaptation governance: an emerging but contested domain.Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change. 2019; 10: e618Crossref Scopus (24) Google Scholar,25Khan M.R. Roberts J.T. Adaptation and international climate policy.Wires Clim. Change. 2013; 4: 171-189Crossref Scopus (80) Google Scholar Adaptation referred to a collection of practices, technologies, programs, or policies implemented to reduce the impact of climate hazards. Critiques of this politically neutral concept of adaptation have discussed how it can exclude the possibility of non-adaptation from consideration and how it can obscure causality and naturalize the problem, placing the risk within climate rather than society.26Ribot J. Vulnerability before adaptation: toward transformative climate action.Glob. Environ. Change. 2011; 21: 1160-1162Crossref Scopus (148) Google Scholar More recently, though, practitioners and scholars have embraced broader discourses of resilience and transformative adaptation, or adaptation that addresses the roots of vulnerability through changing fundamental socioeconomic system attributes.27Eriksen S.H. Nightingale A.J. Eakin H. Reframing adaptation: the political nature of climate change adaptation.Glob. Environ. Change. 2015; 35: 523-533Crossref Scopus (360) Google Scholar Adaptation has also moved from being seen as local to requiring global response. In 2015, Article 7 of the Paris Agreement set out several provisions for adaptation, including a “global goal” that recognizes adaptation as a global challenge. This opened up the possibility of new institutions, processes, and actors to govern it on a global scale.22Thomas K. Hardy R.D. Lazrus H. Mendez M. Orlove B. Rivera-Collazo I. Roberts J.T. Rockman M. Warner B.P. Winthrop R. Explaining differential vulnerability to climate change: a social science review.Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change. 2019; 10: e565Crossref Scopus (141) Google Scholar Carbon removal can also be seen as a collection of local projects and initiatives,28Bellamy R. Geden O. Govern CO2 removal from the ground up.Nat. Geosci. 2019; 12: 874-876Crossref Scopus (32) Google Scholar but one whose regulation and incentivization may benefit from global governance, for similar reasons. What does thinking about vulnerability, resilience, transformational adaptation, and global-scale climate response do for our thinking about carbon removal? First, a few decades of scholarship on adaptation highlight the vulnerabilities that can be exacerbated or created within climate solutions themselves. Climate change requires adaptation not only to new hazards and resource constraints but also to changes in resource access as well as new regimes of knowledge and information.25Khan M.R. Roberts J.T. Adaptation and international climate policy.Wires Clim. Change. 2013; 4: 171-189Crossref Scopus (80) Google Scholar Climate change may, thus, require communities to adapt to carbon removal regimes, which would introduce new knowledge practices, and could either increase or diminish local control over resources. Previous research on “carbon logics” in biodiversity has traced how various actors see financing opportunities for framing conservation actions through carbon and carbon markets, while others see the logic of making decisions based upon carbon analyses as a threat to effective conservation.29Hagerman S. Witter R. Corson C. Suarez D. Maclin E.M. Bourque M. Campbell L. On the coattails of climate? Opportunities and threats of a warming Earth for biodiversity conservation.Glob. Environ. Change. 2012; 22: 724-735Crossref Scopus (23) Google Scholar This illustrates the risk of “carbon logics” similarly being imposed upon adaptation, which like biodiversity is underfunded relative to the challenge: carbon removal may be seen as some as a way to access more financing opportunities, while others may identify the influence of carbon analyses in decision-making as a threat to effective adaptation. The adaptation literature also introduces the concept of “double exposure,” whereby communities experience exposure to both climate change and economic globalization, and hence there are new global drivers to climate vulnerability.30O’Brien K.L. Leichenko R.M. Double exposure: assessing the impacts of climate change within the context of economic globalization.Glob. Environ. Change. 2000; 10: 221-232Crossref Scopus (676) Google Scholar Carbon removal interacts with this double exposure in that some carbon removal components, such as biofuels (which could be part of negative emissions when coupled with carbon capture and storage), have global supply chains and impacts on global commodity prices. Financial carbon removal products such as carbon removal certificates may also have global dimensions, depending on their design and mechanism of exchange. Second, and related to these new vulnerabilities, the adaptation literature helps to bring the issue of agency into sharper focus: who proposes interventions, and who has authority to implement them? Carbon removal and adaptation are both intentional social responses, and they bring up the question of public benefit from these actions. On one hand, it is not reasonable to ask individuals and small communities to organize responses to large-scale problems—adaptation scholar Jesse Ribot points out national defense, road and rail transport systems, and hurricane preparedness as examples for which society reasonably expects governments to do the heavy lifting of organization and repair.25Khan M.R. Roberts J.T. Adaptation and international climate policy.Wires Clim. Change. 2013; 4: 171-189Crossref Scopus (80) Google Scholar On the other hand, when adaptation actions are formal public sector interventions to address specific risks, they can reinforce the authority of policymakers and experts who are designing and engineering the adaptation.26Ribot J. Vulnerability before adaptation: toward transformative climate action.Glob. Environ. Change. 2011; 21: 1160-1162Crossref Scopus (148) Google Scholar Moreover, adaptation activities implemented by people outside the community can result in maladaptation because of a lack of knowledge of local contexts. There is a tension here, then, between the responsibility of government to take on large-scale, complex responses and the way in which those can hinder local agency—much like with carbon removal. Assessing carbon removal policies and practices with these concepts from adaptation in mind helps us see dimensions of public benefit, agency and authority, vulnerability, and transformation that are often underemphasized in carbon removal discussions. In mapping opportunities for synergies, we consider them first through the lens of carbon removal practices, and second through the lens of adaptation need. In Table 1, we draw upon a simplified version of a framework from the adaptation literature: the adaptation continuum, based on a 2007 report by Heather McGray and colleagues at the World ResourcesInstitute.31McGray H. Hammill A. Bradley R. Weathering the Storm: Options for Framing Adaptation and Development. World Resources Institute, 2007https://pdf.wri.org/weathering_the_storm.pdfGoogle Scholar This continuum was developed to address the full spectrum of adaptation actions and to help think about how to mainstream adaptation into development. On one side, there are actions that address drivers of vulnerability. On the other are actions that are intended to address climate impacts, and in the original version there are efforts around building the capacity to respond to climate change and manage climate risk, included here in the left-hand column. When it comes to incorporating carbon removal into adaptation, this is a useful framing tool in terms of examining the range of adaptive practices, and which particular designs of carbon removal implementation might be reasonably regarded as adaptation.Table 1Opportunities for Carbon Removal Practices to Address Vulnerability and Climate ImpactsCarbon Removal PracticeOpportunities to Address Drivers of Vulnerability and Build Response CapacityOpportunities to Confront Climate ImpactsBECCS/Biochar/mass timber•Rural economic development through the “circular carbon economy”/bioeconomy•Knowledge networks built around carbon management (e.g., cooperative extension, regional conservation districts, forestry sector, waste management)•Robust food/fiber supply chain management to better track carbon•Perennialization of agriculture for new bioenergy crops•Fire and mortality-adapted forests•Healthy soils with char amendmentsAccelerated weathering/alkaline waste streams/ocean alkalinity•Diversification of livelihood for communities where minerals could be mined•Training to improve soil health with soil amendments, integrated into soil health assistance•Tracking application of crushed basalt to agricultural land could be done simultaneously with advice on other inputs for best yields under climate change•New research networks can add understanding to oceanic impacts of climate change•Potential to use bulk materials for coastal fortification and to mitigate coastal erosion•Reducing impacts of ocean acidification (protecting corals and other calcifying organisms)DAC/geological sequestration•Diversify livelihood for people in areas of geological sequestration; potential for just transition away from high polluting industry jobs•Training for workers currently engaged in fossil fuel extraction to create a community of practice on carbon management•DAC with CO2-EOR could encourage a framework for thinking and tracking emissions associated with the production of fossil fuels; calculation of corresponding effort to remove specific amounts of CO2 could force consideration of production decisions•No immediate local reduction of climate impacts; potential for reduction of various global climate impacts if implemented on a scale large enough to reduce greenhouse gas concentrationsSoil carbon sequestration•Potential for additional source of on-farm revenue for carbon•Regenerative farming systems have multiple products, enabling diversification of farm income•Social networks around regenerative farming - direct markets for regeneratively grown products can help share knowledge about dealing with climate stressors•Platforms for soil carbon monitoring could be dual-purposed to also advise on climate risk•Increased soil permeability to cope with flooding; potential for regional cooling due to increased soil moisture•Increased soil moisture to increase drought resilienceCoastal blue carbon•Potential additional revenue source and employment for coastal communities•Participatory wetland protection/restoration practices can build capacity to engage with other climate-related threats to coastal ecosystems and communities•Monitoring of coastal blue carbon could be used in planning and permitting decisions•Flood protectionAfforestation/reforestation•Additional source of revenue for forestry communities and landholders, for forest carbon as well as sustainably managed multispecies wood products•Networks of forest industries, land managers, and forest users can strengthen collaboration on other aspects of forest stewardship•Better accounting of forest carbon could be used in forest management decisions•Local cooling benefits; urban afforestation can provide shade trees in heat stressed areas;•Improved water security; erosion control in the face of heavy precipitation eventsAgroforestry•Diversification of livelihoods•farm group membership and expanded extension networks may provide additional sources of information on climate adaptation for farmers•Providing shade on agricultural lands; water benefits; soil health improvement; windbreaks•Identification of climate resilient, high-value trees can help farmers in coping with droughtBECCS, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage; DAC, direct air capture; EOR, enhanced oil recovery. Open table in a new tab BECCS, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage; DAC, direct air capture; EOR, enhanced oil recovery. A key insight here is that the potential for carbon removal interventions to increase adaptive capacity lies in the implementation; it is not inherent in the technology itself. Much of the adaptive benefit of the carbon removal practices lies not in addressing climate impacts, but in building up response capacity—such as new knowledge networks and new sources of data—and in addressing the drivers of vulnerability through new economic opportunities. These are benefits that are not guaranteed to arise in every carbon removal implementation; they require careful policy and project design. What is clear from Table 1 is the amount of political work needed to enact the best-case scenarios with regard to adaptive carbon removal. The risk of poor policy is not just the failure to capture opportunities but the prospect of decreasing adaptive capacity. When it comes to adaptation, there are many ways in which adaptation activities can actually lower a system's ability to adapt to climate change. One framework, sketched out by Benjamin Sovacool and illustrated with examples from adaptation projects in Bangladesh, examines how adaptation activities can constitute enclosure (capturing resources or authority), exclusion (marginalizing stakeholders), encroachment (ecological damage), and entrenchment (worsening social inequality).32Sovacool B.K. Bamboo beating bandits: conflict, inequality, and vulnerability in the political ecology of climate change adaptation in Bangladesh.World Dev. 2018; 102: 183-194Crossref Scopus (58) Google Scholar An extreme example is what Kasia Paprocki calls “anticipatory ruination,” in her analysis of shrimp cultivation in Bangladesh: the expansion of shrimp aquaculture in southwestern Bangladesh, promoted as an anticipatory adaptive response to rising sea levels, has brought social and ecological destruction in its wake, rendering other futures, such as rice farming, unviable.33Paprocki K. All that is solid melts into the bay: anticipatory ruination and climate change adaptation.Antipode. 2019; 51: 295-315Crossref Scopus (42) Google Scholar Indeed, both mitigation and adaptation have been linked to exacerbating social and ecological threats, including environmentally induced displacement from forest carbon, biofuel, or climate-related development projects,34Lunstrum E. Bose P. Zalik A. Environmental displacement: the common ground of climate change, extraction and conservation.Area. 2016; 48: 130-133Crossref Scopus (20) Google Scholar,35Lyons K. Westoby P. Carbon colonialism and the new land grab: plantation forestry in Uganda and its livelihood impacts.J. Rural Stud. 2014; 36: 13-21Crossref Scopus (99) Google Scholar agrarian institutions that create new political vulnerabilities for the rural poor,36Warner B.P. Kuzdas C. Manufactured global-change risk pathways in industrial-based agrarian development.Clim. Dev. 2016; 8: 385-396Crossref Scopus (10) Google Scholar or adaptation projects that redistribute vulnerability more generally.37Atteridge A. Remling E. Is adaptation reducing vulnerability or redistributing it?.Wires Clim. Change. 2018; 9: e500Crossref Scopus (71) Google Scholar,38Magnan A.K. Schipper E.L.F. Burkett M. Bharwani S. Burton I. Eriksen S. Gemenne F. Schaar J. Ziervogel G. Addressing the risk of maladaptation to climate change.Wires Clim. Change. 2016; 7: 646-665Crossref Scopus (157) Google Scholar Carbon removal practices could also result in these failure modes. These risks need to be kept in mind when it comes to making carbon removal policy. A first step is mapping the possible maladaptations. Table 2 illustrates that most of the carbon removal practices do not directly create ecological hazards. Rather, their potential influence on the climate system has to do with difficult-to-quantify tradeoffs and mitigation deterrence effects of poor implementation (i.e., is the carbon removal practice poorly regulated so that its life-cycle analysis is actually emissive rather than negative, or does the removal practice substitute for other alternatives that may have a greater climate benefit?) A key finding of this analysis is that