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Reality check on technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the air

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Wednesday, November 20, 2024

In 2015, 195 nations plus the European Union signed the Paris Agreement and pledged to undertake plans designed to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Yet in 2023, the world exceeded that target for most, if not all of, the year — calling into question the long-term feasibility of achieving that target.To do so, the world must reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and strategies for achieving levels that will “stabilize the climate” have been both proposed and adopted. Many of those strategies combine dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with the use of direct air capture (DAC), a technology that removes CO2 from the ambient air. As a reality check, a team of researchers in the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) examined those strategies, and what they found was alarming: The strategies rely on overly optimistic — indeed, unrealistic — assumptions about how much CO2 could be removed by DAC. As a result, the strategies won’t perform as predicted. Nevertheless, the MITEI team recommends that work to develop the DAC technology continue so that it’s ready to help with the energy transition — even if it’s not the silver bullet that solves the world’s decarbonization challenge.DAC: The promise and the realityIncluding DAC in plans to stabilize the climate makes sense. Much work is now under way to develop DAC systems, and the technology looks promising. While companies may never run their own DAC systems, they can already buy “carbon credits” based on DAC. Today, a multibillion-dollar market exists on which entities or individuals that face high costs or excessive disruptions to reduce their own carbon emissions can pay others to take emissions-reducing actions on their behalf. Those actions can involve undertaking new renewable energy projects or “carbon-removal” initiatives such as DAC or afforestation/reforestation (planting trees in areas that have never been forested or that were forested in the past). DAC-based credits are especially appealing for several reasons, explains Howard Herzog, a senior research engineer at MITEI. With DAC, measuring and verifying the amount of carbon removed is straightforward; the removal is immediate, unlike with planting forests, which may take decades to have an impact; and when DAC is coupled with CO2 storage in geologic formations, the CO2 is kept out of the atmosphere essentially permanently — in contrast to, for example, sequestering it in trees, which may one day burn and release the stored CO2.Will current plans that rely on DAC be effective in stabilizing the climate in the coming years? To find out, Herzog and his colleagues Jennifer Morris and Angelo Gurgel, both MITEI principal research scientists, and Sergey Paltsev, a MITEI senior research scientist — all affiliated with the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3) — took a close look at the modeling studies on which those plans are based.Their investigation identified three unavoidable engineering challenges that together lead to a fourth challenge — high costs for removing a single ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. The details of their findings are reported in a paper published in the journal One Earth on Sept. 20.Challenge 1: Scaling upWhen it comes to removing CO2 from the air, nature presents “a major, non-negotiable challenge,” notes the MITEI team: The concentration of CO2 in the air is extremely low — just 420 parts per million, or roughly 0.04 percent. In contrast, the CO2 concentration in flue gases emitted by power plants and industrial processes ranges from 3 percent to 20 percent. Companies now use various carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies to capture CO2 from their flue gases, but capturing CO2 from the air is much more difficult. To explain, the researchers offer the following analogy: “The difference is akin to needing to find 10 red marbles in a jar of 25,000 marbles of which 24,990 are blue [the task representing DAC] versus needing to find about 10 red marbles in a jar of 100 marbles of which 90 are blue [the task for CCS].”Given that low concentration, removing a single metric ton (tonne) of CO2 from air requires processing about 1.8 million cubic meters of air, which is roughly equivalent to the volume of 720 Olympic-sized swimming pools. And all that air must be moved across a CO2-capturing sorbent — a feat requiring large equipment. For example, one recently proposed design for capturing 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year would require an “air contactor” equivalent in size to a structure about three stories high and three miles long.Recent modeling studies project DAC deployment on the scale of 5 to 40 gigatonnes of CO2 removed per year. (A gigatonne equals 1 billion metric tonnes.) But in their paper, the researchers conclude that the likelihood of deploying DAC at the gigatonne scale is “highly uncertain.”Challenge 2: Energy requirementGiven the low concentration of CO2 in the air and the need to move large quantities of air to capture it, it’s no surprise that even the best DAC processes proposed today would consume large amounts of energy — energy that’s generally supplied by a combination of electricity and heat. Including the energy needed to compress the captured CO2 for transportation and storage, most proposed processes require an equivalent of at least 1.2 megawatt-hours of electricity for each tonne of CO2 removed.The source of that electricity is critical. For example, using coal-based electricity to drive an all-electric DAC process would generate 1.2 tonnes of CO2 for each tonne of CO2 captured. The result would be a net increase in emissions, defeating the whole purpose of the DAC. So clearly, the energy requirement must be satisfied using either low-carbon electricity or electricity generated using fossil fuels with CCS. All-electric DAC deployed at large scale — say, 10 gigatonnes of CO2 removed annually — would require 12,000 terawatt-hours of electricity, which is more than 40 percent of total global electricity generation today.Electricity consumption is expected to grow due to increasing overall electrification of the world economy, so low-carbon electricity will be in high demand for many competing uses — for example, in power generation, transportation, industry, and building operations. Using clean electricity for DAC instead of for reducing CO2 emissions in other critical areas raises concerns about the best uses of clean electricity.Many studies assume that a DAC unit could also get energy from “waste heat” generated by some industrial process or facility nearby. In the MITEI researchers’ opinion, “that may be more wishful thinking than reality.” The heat source would need to be within a few miles of the DAC plant for transporting the heat to be economical; given its high capital cost, the DAC plant would need to run nonstop, requiring constant heat delivery; and heat at the temperature required by the DAC plant would have competing uses, for example, for heating buildings. Finally, if DAC is deployed at the gigatonne per year scale, waste heat will likely be able to provide only a small fraction of the needed energy.Challenge 3: SitingSome analysts have asserted that, because air is everywhere, DAC units can be located anywhere. But in reality, siting a DAC plant involves many complex issues. As noted above, DAC plants require significant amounts of energy, so having access to enough low-carbon energy is critical. Likewise, having nearby options for storing the removed CO2 is also critical. If storage sites or pipelines to such sites don’t exist, major new infrastructure will need to be built, and building new infrastructure of any kind is expensive and complicated, involving issues related to permitting, environmental justice, and public acceptability — issues that are, in the words of the researchers, “commonly underestimated in the real world and neglected in models.”Two more siting needs must be considered. First, meteorological conditions must be acceptable. By definition, any DAC unit will be exposed to the elements, and factors like temperature and humidity will affect process performance and process availability. And second, a DAC plant will require some dedicated land — though how much is unclear, as the optimal spacing of units is as yet unresolved. Like wind turbines, DAC units need to be properly spaced to ensure maximum performance such that one unit is not sucking in CO2-depleted air from another unit.Challenge 4: CostConsidering the first three challenges, the final challenge is clear: the cost per tonne of CO2 removed is inevitably high. Recent modeling studies assume DAC costs as low as $100 to $200 per ton of CO2 removed. But the researchers found evidence suggesting far higher costs.To start, they cite typical costs for power plants and industrial sites that now use CCS to remove CO2 from their flue gases. The cost of CCS in such applications is estimated to be in the range of $50 to $150 per ton of CO2 removed. As explained above, the far lower concentration of CO2 in the air will lead to substantially higher costs.As explained under Challenge 1, the DAC units needed to capture the required amount of air are massive. The capital cost of building them will be high, given labor, materials, permitting costs, and so on. Some estimates in the literature exceed $5,000 per tonne captured per year.Then there are the ongoing costs of energy. As noted under Challenge 2, removing 1 tonne of CO2 requires the equivalent of 1.2 megawatt-hours of electricity. If that electricity costs $0.10 per kilowatt-hour, the cost of just the electricity needed to remove 1 tonne of CO2 is $120. The researchers point out that assuming such a low price is “questionable,” given the expected increase in electricity demand, future competition for clean energy, and higher costs on a system dominated by renewable — but intermittent — energy sources.Then there’s the cost of storage, which is ignored in many DAC cost estimates.Clearly, many considerations show that prices of $100 to $200 per tonne are unrealistic, and assuming such low prices will distort assessments of strategies, leading them to underperform going forward.The bottom lineIn their paper, the MITEI team calls DAC a “very seductive concept.” Using DAC to suck CO2 out of the air and generate high-quality carbon-removal credits can offset reduction requirements for industries that have hard-to-abate emissions. By doing so, DAC would minimize disruptions to key parts of the world’s economy, including air travel, certain carbon-intensive industries, and agriculture. However, the world would need to generate billions of tonnes of CO2 credits at an affordable price. That prospect doesn’t look likely. The largest DAC plant in operation today removes just 4,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, and the price to buy the company’s carbon-removal credits on the market today is $1,500 per tonne.The researchers recognize that there is room for energy efficiency improvements in the future, but DAC units will always be subject to higher work requirements than CCS applied to power plant or industrial flue gases, and there is not a clear pathway to reducing work requirements much below the levels of current DAC technologies.Nevertheless, the researchers recommend that work to develop DAC continue “because it may be needed for meeting net-zero emissions goals, especially given the current pace of emissions.” But their paper concludes with this warning: “Given the high stakes of climate change, it is foolhardy to rely on DAC to be the hero that comes to our rescue.”

Study finds many climate-stabilization plans are based on questionable assumptions about the future cost and deployment of “direct air capture” and therefore may not bring about promised reductions.

In 2015, 195 nations plus the European Union signed the Paris Agreement and pledged to undertake plans designed to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Yet in 2023, the world exceeded that target for most, if not all of, the year — calling into question the long-term feasibility of achieving that target.

To do so, the world must reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and strategies for achieving levels that will “stabilize the climate” have been both proposed and adopted. Many of those strategies combine dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with the use of direct air capture (DAC), a technology that removes CO2 from the ambient air. As a reality check, a team of researchers in the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) examined those strategies, and what they found was alarming: The strategies rely on overly optimistic — indeed, unrealistic — assumptions about how much CO2 could be removed by DAC. As a result, the strategies won’t perform as predicted. Nevertheless, the MITEI team recommends that work to develop the DAC technology continue so that it’s ready to help with the energy transition — even if it’s not the silver bullet that solves the world’s decarbonization challenge.

DAC: The promise and the reality

Including DAC in plans to stabilize the climate makes sense. Much work is now under way to develop DAC systems, and the technology looks promising. While companies may never run their own DAC systems, they can already buy “carbon credits” based on DAC. Today, a multibillion-dollar market exists on which entities or individuals that face high costs or excessive disruptions to reduce their own carbon emissions can pay others to take emissions-reducing actions on their behalf. Those actions can involve undertaking new renewable energy projects or “carbon-removal” initiatives such as DAC or afforestation/reforestation (planting trees in areas that have never been forested or that were forested in the past). 

DAC-based credits are especially appealing for several reasons, explains Howard Herzog, a senior research engineer at MITEI. With DAC, measuring and verifying the amount of carbon removed is straightforward; the removal is immediate, unlike with planting forests, which may take decades to have an impact; and when DAC is coupled with CO2 storage in geologic formations, the CO2 is kept out of the atmosphere essentially permanently — in contrast to, for example, sequestering it in trees, which may one day burn and release the stored CO2.

Will current plans that rely on DAC be effective in stabilizing the climate in the coming years? To find out, Herzog and his colleagues Jennifer Morris and Angelo Gurgel, both MITEI principal research scientists, and Sergey Paltsev, a MITEI senior research scientist — all affiliated with the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3) — took a close look at the modeling studies on which those plans are based.

Their investigation identified three unavoidable engineering challenges that together lead to a fourth challenge — high costs for removing a single ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. The details of their findings are reported in a paper published in the journal One Earth on Sept. 20.

Challenge 1: Scaling up

When it comes to removing CO2 from the air, nature presents “a major, non-negotiable challenge,” notes the MITEI team: The concentration of CO2 in the air is extremely low — just 420 parts per million, or roughly 0.04 percent. In contrast, the CO2 concentration in flue gases emitted by power plants and industrial processes ranges from 3 percent to 20 percent. Companies now use various carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies to capture CO2 from their flue gases, but capturing CO2 from the air is much more difficult. To explain, the researchers offer the following analogy: “The difference is akin to needing to find 10 red marbles in a jar of 25,000 marbles of which 24,990 are blue [the task representing DAC] versus needing to find about 10 red marbles in a jar of 100 marbles of which 90 are blue [the task for CCS].”

Given that low concentration, removing a single metric ton (tonne) of CO2 from air requires processing about 1.8 million cubic meters of air, which is roughly equivalent to the volume of 720 Olympic-sized swimming pools. And all that air must be moved across a CO2-capturing sorbent — a feat requiring large equipment. For example, one recently proposed design for capturing 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year would require an “air contactor” equivalent in size to a structure about three stories high and three miles long.

Recent modeling studies project DAC deployment on the scale of 5 to 40 gigatonnes of CO2 removed per year. (A gigatonne equals 1 billion metric tonnes.) But in their paper, the researchers conclude that the likelihood of deploying DAC at the gigatonne scale is “highly uncertain.”

Challenge 2: Energy requirement

Given the low concentration of CO2 in the air and the need to move large quantities of air to capture it, it’s no surprise that even the best DAC processes proposed today would consume large amounts of energy — energy that’s generally supplied by a combination of electricity and heat. Including the energy needed to compress the captured CO2 for transportation and storage, most proposed processes require an equivalent of at least 1.2 megawatt-hours of electricity for each tonne of CO2 removed.

The source of that electricity is critical. For example, using coal-based electricity to drive an all-electric DAC process would generate 1.2 tonnes of CO2 for each tonne of CO2 captured. The result would be a net increase in emissions, defeating the whole purpose of the DAC. So clearly, the energy requirement must be satisfied using either low-carbon electricity or electricity generated using fossil fuels with CCS. All-electric DAC deployed at large scale — say, 10 gigatonnes of CO2 removed annually — would require 12,000 terawatt-hours of electricity, which is more than 40 percent of total global electricity generation today.

Electricity consumption is expected to grow due to increasing overall electrification of the world economy, so low-carbon electricity will be in high demand for many competing uses — for example, in power generation, transportation, industry, and building operations. Using clean electricity for DAC instead of for reducing CO2 emissions in other critical areas raises concerns about the best uses of clean electricity.

Many studies assume that a DAC unit could also get energy from “waste heat” generated by some industrial process or facility nearby. In the MITEI researchers’ opinion, “that may be more wishful thinking than reality.” The heat source would need to be within a few miles of the DAC plant for transporting the heat to be economical; given its high capital cost, the DAC plant would need to run nonstop, requiring constant heat delivery; and heat at the temperature required by the DAC plant would have competing uses, for example, for heating buildings. Finally, if DAC is deployed at the gigatonne per year scale, waste heat will likely be able to provide only a small fraction of the needed energy.

Challenge 3: Siting

Some analysts have asserted that, because air is everywhere, DAC units can be located anywhere. But in reality, siting a DAC plant involves many complex issues. As noted above, DAC plants require significant amounts of energy, so having access to enough low-carbon energy is critical. Likewise, having nearby options for storing the removed CO2 is also critical. If storage sites or pipelines to such sites don’t exist, major new infrastructure will need to be built, and building new infrastructure of any kind is expensive and complicated, involving issues related to permitting, environmental justice, and public acceptability — issues that are, in the words of the researchers, “commonly underestimated in the real world and neglected in models.”

Two more siting needs must be considered. First, meteorological conditions must be acceptable. By definition, any DAC unit will be exposed to the elements, and factors like temperature and humidity will affect process performance and process availability. And second, a DAC plant will require some dedicated land — though how much is unclear, as the optimal spacing of units is as yet unresolved. Like wind turbines, DAC units need to be properly spaced to ensure maximum performance such that one unit is not sucking in CO2-depleted air from another unit.

Challenge 4: Cost

Considering the first three challenges, the final challenge is clear: the cost per tonne of CO2 removed is inevitably high. Recent modeling studies assume DAC costs as low as $100 to $200 per ton of CO2 removed. But the researchers found evidence suggesting far higher costs.

To start, they cite typical costs for power plants and industrial sites that now use CCS to remove CO2 from their flue gases. The cost of CCS in such applications is estimated to be in the range of $50 to $150 per ton of CO2 removed. As explained above, the far lower concentration of CO2 in the air will lead to substantially higher costs.

As explained under Challenge 1, the DAC units needed to capture the required amount of air are massive. The capital cost of building them will be high, given labor, materials, permitting costs, and so on. Some estimates in the literature exceed $5,000 per tonne captured per year.

Then there are the ongoing costs of energy. As noted under Challenge 2, removing 1 tonne of CO2 requires the equivalent of 1.2 megawatt-hours of electricity. If that electricity costs $0.10 per kilowatt-hour, the cost of just the electricity needed to remove 1 tonne of CO2 is $120. The researchers point out that assuming such a low price is “questionable,” given the expected increase in electricity demand, future competition for clean energy, and higher costs on a system dominated by renewable — but intermittent — energy sources.

Then there’s the cost of storage, which is ignored in many DAC cost estimates.

Clearly, many considerations show that prices of $100 to $200 per tonne are unrealistic, and assuming such low prices will distort assessments of strategies, leading them to underperform going forward.

The bottom line

In their paper, the MITEI team calls DAC a “very seductive concept.” Using DAC to suck CO2 out of the air and generate high-quality carbon-removal credits can offset reduction requirements for industries that have hard-to-abate emissions. By doing so, DAC would minimize disruptions to key parts of the world’s economy, including air travel, certain carbon-intensive industries, and agriculture. However, the world would need to generate billions of tonnes of CO2 credits at an affordable price. That prospect doesn’t look likely. The largest DAC plant in operation today removes just 4,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, and the price to buy the company’s carbon-removal credits on the market today is $1,500 per tonne.

The researchers recognize that there is room for energy efficiency improvements in the future, but DAC units will always be subject to higher work requirements than CCS applied to power plant or industrial flue gases, and there is not a clear pathway to reducing work requirements much below the levels of current DAC technologies.

Nevertheless, the researchers recommend that work to develop DAC continue “because it may be needed for meeting net-zero emissions goals, especially given the current pace of emissions.” But their paper concludes with this warning: “Given the high stakes of climate change, it is foolhardy to rely on DAC to be the hero that comes to our rescue.”

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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How do you define climate adaptation? Here are 10,000 ways.

At COP29, a decade-long effort to realize the ambitions of the Paris agreement could give the world a way to measure the success of climate adaptation.

The essence of the Paris climate agreement was distilled into a single number. The almost 200 countries that signed the pact in 2016 agreed they would try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Over the past decade, as these countries have rolled out renewable energy installations and decommissioned coal plants, we have been able to evaluate their efforts against this number. (The results have not been promising.) But the 1.5-degree target was just one element of the Paris accord. The world also committed to throw its weight behind efforts to adapt to the global warming already baked in by centuries of fossil-fueled industrialization. Even if emissions fall, disasters over the next century will displace many millions of people and destroy billions of dollars in property, particularly in developing countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Those countries fought to ensure that adaptation to those hazards was a key pillar of the agreement. But there’s no one way to measure the success of this commitment. Should the U.N. measure the number of deaths from disasters, or the value of property destroyed in floods, or the incidence of hunger, or the availability of clean water? How will the international community determine the efficacy of adaptation measures like sea walls and drought-resistant crops, given that the disasters they prevent remain so unpredictable? “There is no one single measure you can use that will apply to all adaptation globally,’” said Emilie Beauchamp, an adaptation expert at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a think tank, who is participating in adaptation talks at COP29, this year’s U.N. climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. “It’s not like when we say, ‘we reduce our emissions.’ You can say we need to reduce vulnerability, but that’s going to change according to whose vulnerability you’re talking about.” This question is far from academic: Climate change is fueling more frequent and severe disasters, ravaging places with vulnerable infrastructure. In Zambia, electricity service has been reduced to just a few hours a day thanks to drought emptying out a key reservoir. Meanwhile, a year’s worth of rainfall deluged the Valencia region of Spain in just a few days last month, causing flooding that killed more than 200 people. In the United States, warming helped juice the intensity of several major hurricanes that made landfall this year. Despite the urgency, adaptation hasn’t received much attention at recent U.N. climate talks. This year’s COP is no exception. While the conferences often open with rich countries making major new funding pledges, this year just $60 million in new pledges went to the world’s biggest adaptation fund. That total, raised by European nations and South Korea, is well short of the $300 million the fund had hoped to raise. While the main target of COP29 is a new agreement on a global finance goal — which could end up well over a trillion U.S. dollars and is intended to help the developing world with all aspects of the climate fight — wealthy countries have refused to reserve a portion of that target for adaptation, in part because adaptation efforts attract far less private investment than renewable energy. In finance talks, developing nations have asked that billions of dollars be set aside for adaptation — a far cry from the $60 million announced at the start of the conference. Read Next Can you solve the world’s trillion-dollar climate finance puzzle? Jake Bittle Despite the funding impasse, the world is inching closer to finally defining an effort that could make the difference between life and death for millions of people around the world. The U.N. is halfway through a two-year attempt to finally pick “adaptation indicators,” or global yardsticks that will allow every country to measure its climate resilience. This decade-delayed effort to complete the ambitions of the Paris agreement will in theory give the world a way to measure adaptation success. “We’re hopeful,” said Hawwa Nabaaha Nashid, an official at the environmental ministry of the Maldives, an island state in the Indian Ocean. “If there’s a high-quality [outcome], we can answer the question—how well are we adapting and what needs to be done differently?” There are still big hurdles to clear. The latest text of the adaptation negotiators were considering, which appeared early Thursday, left out some priorities of developing countries, but negotiators expressed more optimism about the adaptation item than they did about other items such as decarbonization and climate finance. And the task of selecting indicators is daunting in itself. Last year’s COP saw agreement on specific target areas for adaptation, including water, health, biodiversity, food, infrastructure, poverty, and heritage. But to measure progress in these target areas, negotiators have proposed a whopping 10,000 potential indicators. This eye-popping sum highlights just how fluid and context-dependent the notion of “ climate adaptation” really is.  Some potential indicators, like “area of contorta pine” (a European Union proposal on biodiversity) and “number of boreholes drilled” (a water proposal from developing countries) seem far too specific, since most of the world doesn’t have significant amounts of contorta pine or get its water by drilling boreholes. Others, such as “types of synergies created” seem so vague as to be almost useless. Some, such as “number of mining operations in protected areas reviewed and temporarily suspended” don’t seem to have anything to do with adapting to climate disasters. “By the very nature of adaptation being more diffuse and broad, you get a multitude of indicators, sub-indicators, and criteria,” said Kalim Shah, a professor of environmental science at the University of Delaware who has assisted small island states like the Marshall Islands with adaptation planning. “It’s much more diffuse, and maybe that’s part of the problem: too many cooks in the kitchen.” The major roadblock in these discussions is money. In every negotiation, poor countries have demanded clear language acknowledging that adaptation is impossible without adequate funding, while rich countries have tried to exclude such language and focus on planning and logistics. In the fight over the indicators, the developing world is seeking a commitment to include an indicator that measures “means of implementation” — in other words, a metric for how capable countries are of carrying out their adaptation plans. This would amount to an acknowledgement that funding and capacity are critical to climate adaptation of any kind, whether it’s building new sand dams for pastoral herders or tracking the spread of dengue fever. But even that acknowledgement appears to be controversial. “It is still a big contention,” said Portia Adade Williams, who is negotiating adaptation needs on behalf of Ghana. “I’m still not sure how we are going to end it. But from a developing country point of view, this would be a complete red line, to have a decision that doesn’t allow us to track [capacity].”  Nashid, of the Maldives, said the country can’t consider scaling up its adaptation efforts without more money. The country has used huge amounts of reclaimed land to build quasi-artificial islands that can house displaced populations from lower-lying isles. “We have to exhaust our limited domestic budget to finance our adaptation efforts, taking away from other priority areas such as healthcare and education,” she told Grist. The capacity issue is especially acute for island nations with small populations, who don’t always have the infrastructure needed to navigate the complex bureaucracy of the multilateral U.N. funds that support adaptation. These low-lying nations often face an almost existential threat from rising sea levels, so they won’t necessarily benefit from just one capital project paid for by these funds — they have to adapt their entire territories in order to survive. “By the time all these little things have happened for you to get the money, the risks have increased,” said Filomena Nelson, an adaptation negotiator from Samoa who works for the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, an intergovernmental authority that manages environmental protection across Pacific islands. “It takes forever, it’s complicated, it’s a vicious cycle.” When negotiators can’t discuss money, adaptation talks tend to get mired in the realm of the abstract. This was evident in Baku this week, where negotiators in one adaptation talk confronted a multi-dimensional graph about “transformational adaptation” with three axes: “time,” “changes in paradigms,” and “changes in the fundamental attributes of socio-ecological systems.” That chart was accompanied by another evaluation matrix that resembled a Rubik’s cube. One observer joked that she wanted to get it printed on a shirt. In the meantime, the need for action is only getting more urgent.  The United Nations’ annual report on adaptation, which became public just before COP29 began, underscored the life-or-death stakes of an issue that often feels like a forgotten middle child at global climate talks. The U.N. expert who led the report introduced it by saying that “people are already dying, homes and livelihoods are being destroyed, and nature is under assault.” The report estimated the unmet need for adaptation investment at up to $359 billion every year. Notably, this need was not expressed in forested acres or boreholes drilled, but in U.S. dollars. In recent years, as developed countries have belatedly endorsed the idea of a fund for redressing climate-fueled damage — and as the world has verged on breaching the 1.5 degrees C threshold laid out by the Paris accord — some have started to discuss the demise of small island states as an inevitability rather than a possibility. But Nelson said that while some disaster losses are inevitable, Samoa and other countries aren’t ready to admit that they will have to leave their homelands, an outcome that many experts fear will be likely with 1.5 degrees or more of warming.  “We will not give up our land just because we’re facing these issues,” she said. “This is where we come from — if we give up now, it sends the wrong signal.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How do you define climate adaptation? Here are 10,000 ways. on Nov 21, 2024.

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‘The land is tearing itself apart’: life on a collapsing Arctic isle

On Qikiqtaruk, off Canada, researchers at the frontier of climate change are seeing its rich ecology slide into the sea as the melting permafrost leaves little behindLast summer, the western Arctic was uncomfortably hot. Smoke from Canada’s wildfires hung thick in the air, and swarms of mosquitoes searched for exposed skin. It was a maddening combination that left researchers on Qikiqtaruk, an island off the north coast of the Yukon, desperate for relief.And so on a late July afternoon, a team of Canadian scientists dived into the Beaufort Sea, bobbing and splashing in a sheltered bay for nearly two hours. Later, as they lay sprawled on a beach, huge chunks of the island they were studying slid into the ocean. Continue reading...

Last summer, the western Arctic was uncomfortably hot. Smoke from Canada’s wildfires hung thick in the air, and swarms of mosquitoes searched for exposed skin. It was a maddening combination that left researchers on Qikiqtaruk, an island off the north coast of the Yukon, desperate for relief.And so on a late July afternoon, a team of Canadian scientists dived into the Beaufort Sea, bobbing and splashing in a sheltered bay for nearly two hours. Later, as they lay sprawled on a beach, huge chunks of the island they were studying slid into the ocean.“The land was giving us hints of what was to come,” says Richard Gordon, a senior ranger “Days before, we found all these puddles of clear water. But it hadn’t rained at all in days; you look up and see nothing but blue sky.“Now we know: all of that ice in the permafrost had melted. The signs were there. We just didn’t know.”A time-lapse video taken by Team Shrub ecologists of a landslip taking place over two weeksOver the next two weeks, the landslides happened again and again. Throughout the small island, the tundra sheared off in more than 700 different locations. Some collapses were quick, soil ripping from the land with a damp thunderclap. Others were slow, with land “rippling and rolling like a carpet” down the slope, says Isla Myers-Smith, an ecology professor at the University of British Columbia.It’s hard not to get emotionally invested because you are studying and witnessing irreversible changesIsla Myers-Smith, ecologistIn one case, the team was devastated to learn that one of their monitoring sites, where the data they collected had given a three decade-long glimpse into the island’s shifting ecology, had vanished into the ocean.“Each time you lose a dataset, you lose understanding of how the island is changing,” says Myers-Smith. “It’s hard not to get emotionally invested in the work you do and in this place because you know you’re studying and witnessing irreversible changes.”For more than a decade, Myers-Smith and her “Team Shrub” graduate students have studied those dramatic changes unfolding on Qikiqtaruk (also known as Herschel Island).Armed with a fleet of drones and working closely with Indigenous Inuvialuit rangers, the team has revealed a rapid reshaping of the tundra with little precedent. As they race to understand what those changes might mean, a combination of rising seas, landslides and flooding mean the landscape is literally collapsing around them, making it harder to study an island that reflects the tumultuous future of the western Arctic.Lying just off the Canadian mainland, Qikiqtaruk is a mass of sediment and permafrost piled up during the last ice age. Despite its small size, the island is packed with immense ecological richness, with waters teeming with beluga whales and trout-like Dolly Varden char. On land, it is one of the few places on Earth where black, grizzly and polar bears cross paths. Musk ox and caribou browse the lichen. The land is thickly carpeted with more than 200 species of wildflowers, grasses and shrubs.Drone footage of Qikiqtaruk in July, as pack ice fragments on the Beaufort Sea and the midnight sun grazes the horizon. Credit: Ciara NortonFor the Inuvialuit, the island continues to be a hunting and fishing ground that for nearly a thousand years sustained communities through dark and bitter winters.I can’t imagine the fear and stress animals feel as everything changes so fast. We’re supposed to be guardians of the land. But we’ve let them downWhen they negotiated a land claim agreement with the Canadian government in 1984, Inuvialuit elders used their new powers to protect Qikiqtaruk by establishing the Herschel Island–Qikiqtaruk territorial park, fearful that industry and outsiders would destroy a place that held deep cultural value.When he was a child, Gordon’s family would make the multi-day trek to Qikiqtaruk in a small boat, crossing hundreds of kilometres of brackish delta. He spent summers on the island, running through the remains of weather-beaten buildings, built during the region’s whaling era at the turn of the last century.Returning with a cohort of elders before the agreement, he saw “how meaningful the land was, how intertwined it was with our oral histories, our culture; I understood the power it had”, Gordon says. “I understood why they wanted so much for it to be protected.”While the elders envisioned a space protected from destructive outside forces, in two decades as park ranger at Herschel Island–Qikiqtaruk territorial park, Gordon has watched as the island has morphed into something unrecognisable.The camp during August’s floods. The boardwalks no longer extend far enough to keep up with the water levels, so hip waders are the footwear of choice. Yukon government conservationists have been moving the buildings to the highest points of land as the waters rise. Credit: Ciara NortonIn early August the first faint blush of autumn is visible in the shrubs of the tundra. Taking advantage of a brief window of favourable weather, Myers-Smith and a group of researchers pile into a helicopter, to be dropped off throughout Qikiqtaruk to monitor its changes, deploying trail cameras, scouring wetlands and piloting drones. The work is tiring and often pushes late into the night. They sometimes eat dinner close to midnight, enjoying the pink hues of a sky where the sun does not fully set.An ecosystem in rapid fluxThe team’s research has shown an island ecosystem in rapid flux: the tundra is “greening” at an incredible rate as shrubs such as willow push north and grow taller. In doing so, they push out the cottongrass, mosses and lichens that take hundreds – sometimes thousands – of years to grow.Buoyed up by higher temperatures and lengthened growing seasons, the number and diversity of plants will keep growing, Myers-Smith says. This is seemingly a bright spot amid a global biodiversity crisis: more plants and animals are making the tundra their home.And yet a lush, greening Arctic will come at a cost: upending the lives of animals that rely on seasonal rhythm and predictability. Herds of caribou are among the most likely casualties, as bare spots on the tundra, favoured by the lichen that they like to eat, are overtaken by shrubs. The American golden plover, a shorebird that flies yearly from the Arctic to the southern reaches of South America, will find its habitat disappearing as plants grow thicker, crowding out the bald patches of land it prefers.“It’s one thing to think about what the changes mean to us, but I can’t imagine the fear and stress the animals feel as everything changes so fast,” says Gordon. “We’re supposed to be the guardians of the land. But we’ve let them down.”Qikiqtaruk is now pockmarked with half-moon shaped craters. Known as thaw slumps, they occur when the underlying permafrost has melted to the point that it can no longer support the soil and the ground collapses.Views of Slump D, one of the Arctic’s largest thaw slumps. It is growing rapidly as the rate of melting ice accelerates, cutting into the landscape by up to 20 metres a year. Credit: Isla Myers-SmithPermafrost thaws across the globe are destroying housing and infrastructure, and disrupting ecosystems. These slumps are also harbingers of a cascading environmental catastrophe: there is twice as much carbon locked up in permafrost as in the atmosphere.One of the world’s largest thaw slumps is Slump D, on Qikiqtaruk. Inside it, bumblebees bounce between mastodon flowers (also known as marsh fleawort). The whine of mosquitoes reaches the same pitch as the research drones overhead. Melt water gurgles through silty channels, creating a viscous mud that has claimed many rubber boots from Team Shrub. Every few hours, a lump of earth tears away from the overhanging cliff and falls to the ground below.A polar bear passes the settlement as it walks along the beach near camp; although polar bears are seen less frequently along the coast in the summer as they follow the pack ice northwards, one bear spent about a week on the island in July. A caribou scatters shorebirds as it runs to escape the mosquitoes. A Baird’s sandpiper calls amid the flowering tundra. Credit: Isla Myers-SmithIncreasingly, chunks of land hundreds of metres wide will rip away – a phenomenon known as active layer detachment. Unlike other types of permafrost, with high levels of rock or soil, Qikiqtaruk’s permafrost is disproportionately made of ice, making it uniquely susceptible to immense and powerful geological forces when that ice melts.“It feels like we’re at the frontier of change on this island, where the fabric of the landscape itself is tearing apart,” says Ciara Norton, a Team Shrub research assistant. “These massive permafrost disturbance events are going to continue to happen – and yet we don’t really know what that means.”One thing is clear: the constant landslides are the latest in a string of challenges that have made studying the island increasingly difficult. Bush planes cannot land on Qikiqtaruk when puddles of seawater are present – and they have become a near-constant presence on the low-lying gravel airstrip. Fog smothers the cove and grounds helicopters for days. Unpredictable storms keep boats away. In mid-August this year, Team Shrub was trapped on the island for an extra 12 days. The research team monitors changes on the island, from wetlands to insect life and flowering cycles, to understand what is happening. Their finds included the northernmost dragonfly ever observed in the Yukon territory, in October. Photographs: Leyland Cecco and Isla Myers-Smith Norton’s education in the sciences has been overcast by a looming sense of climate anxiety. “Raw discovery alone isn’t enough – the research needs to happen in the context of people affected by all of this,” she says.“We’re tracking all of the changes in the land to understand why this is happening. And it matters. But the other part of me really feels for the island, a place that people are supposed to visit and experience.”The vast troves of data collected by scientists are a key part of understanding what’s happening, says Gordon. “But we’re losing traditional knowledge by not spending as much time on the land. It’s hard and expensive to get out here, so fewer people visit the island. And so all of this work, who is it all for?“It was protected so that people could come here and experience it. But often those same people are making things worse. Every time someone takes a step on this land, they experience something powerful – and yet make a landslide more likely to happen.”

Climate
Animals
Culture

At UN Climate Talks, a Draft of the Deal Gives Little Clarity on Climate Cash for Developing Nations

A new draft text released early Thursday which will form the basis of any deal reached at United Nations climate talks on money for developing countries to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change left out a crucial sticking point: how much wealthy nations will pay

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — A new draft text released early Thursday which will form the basis of any deal reached at United Nations climate talks on money for developing countries to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change left out a crucial sticking point: how much wealthy nations will pay.Negotiators at the talks — known as COP29 — in Baku, Azerbaijan, are trying to close the gap between the $1.3 trillion the developing world says is needed in climate finance and the few hundred billion that richer nations have been prepared to pay. But the draft text "presents two extreme ends of the aisle without much in between," said Li Shuo, Asia Society Policy Institute Director. “Other than capturing the ground standing of both sides, this text hardly does anything more.”Rob Moore, Associate Director at European think tank E3G said that “negotiators need to make a huge amount of progress over the next few days and the road to agreement will need to see rapid and candid engagement, with numbers on the table.”The lack of numbers in the draft text could be a “bluff," said Linda Kalcher, of the think tank Strategic Perspectives. The COP29 presidency, which prepares the texts “should know more ... than what they put on the table,” she said. She added that the draft reveals that developed nations are still keeping their cards close to their chest.There are three big parts of the issue where negotiators need to find agreement: How big the numbers are, how much is grants or loans, and who contributes. Official observers of the talks from the International Institute of Sustainable Development who are allowed to sit in on the closed meetings reported that negotiators have now agreed on not expanding the list of countries that will contribute to global climate funds — at least at these talks. Kalcher said on the question of grants or loans, the draft text suggests “the need for grants and better access to finance.”Earlier on Wednesday, lead negotiator Yelchin Rafiyev said the latest version of the climate finance text released would be far from final but will be clear step forward. But experts said Thursday that a deal is still a long way off, and the summit appeared headed toward the same drama and overtime finish as seen in previous years.Iskander Erzini Vernoit, director of Moroccan climate think-tank Imal Initiative for Climate and Development, said that some developed nations “are slowly waking up” to the fact that keeping warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times will require over a trillion dollars in finance. "But many are still asleep at the wheel,” he said.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Climate
Energy

At UN Climate Talks, 'Sewage' Beer From Singapore Highlights Water Scarcity and Innovations

The Singapore pavilion at the United Nations climate talks offers attendees free beer with an ingredient that's surprising to many — treated wastewater

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — In the sprawling pavilion section of the United Nations climate talks, where countries, nonprofits and tech companies use big, flashy signs to get the attention of the thousands of people walking through, small aqua and purple beverage cans sit conspicuously on a counter at the Singapore display.Those who approach learn that the cans are beer — a brand call NEWBrew — and free for anybody who asks. But there is something not everybody who cracks one open finds out right away, if at all: the beer is made with treated wastewater. “I didn’t know. I was really surprised,” said Ignace Urchil Lokouako Mbouamboua, an international relations student from Congo, who recently sipped one while taking a break from the conference.“I can even suggest that they make more and more of this kind of beer,” added Mbouamboua with a smile, sharing it was his third day in a row he stopped for a can. NEWBrew is made in Singapore with NEWater, the name of treated wastewater that's part of a national campaign to conserve every drop in one of the world’s most water-starved places.The drink, which some attendees jokingly call “sewage beer,” is one of many examples of climate- and environment-related innovations on display during this year's climate talks, COP29, taking place in Azerbaijan. Highlighting the use of treated wastewater underscores one of the world's most pressing problems as climate change accelerates: providing drinking water to a growing population.For years, Singapore has been a leader in water management and innovations. The city-state island of 6 million people in Southeast Asia, one of the most densely populated countries, has no natural water sources. In addition to water imports from Malaysia, the other pillars of its national strategy are catchment, desalination and recycling. Authorities have said they need to ramp up all water sources, as demand is expected to double by 2065.While drinking treated wastewater is a novelty for many at the climate conference, for Singaporeans it's nothing new. National campaigns — from water conservation pleas to showing the wastewater recycling process — go back decades. In 2022, then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was famously photographed drinking a bottle of NEWater after a tennis match, done to normalize its use. Ong Tze-Ch’in, chief executive of the Public Utility Board, Singapore's national water agency, said NEWBrew was developed by a local brewery in 2018. The idea was to showcase treated wastewater at the country's biennial International Water Week. The beer was next produced in 2022, then again this year. “It's part of the acceptance of the use of recycled water, which in general is a difficult topic," said Ong. “We did many things to drive it.”And is he happy with how it turned out?“I chose this flavor,” said Ong, adding that he was part of the group that worked with the brewery for this year's version, a “modern pilsner.”“You know, beer is always very subjective,” he added with a laugh.After attending a panel on water management at the Singapore pavilion, Peter Rummel, director of infrastructure policy advancement at Bentley Systems, which creates infrastructure engineering software, stepped up to the counter and got a beer. Rummel told onlookers he was in a good position to judge beer, as he hailed from Munich, Germany, home to the Oktoberfest beer festival. “It’s fresh, light, cool. It has a nice flavor,” said Rummel, while looking at the can. Wee-Tuck Tan, managing director of the local brewery, The Brewerkz Group, said they have made about 5,000 liters, or roughly 15,000 cans, for each edition of NewBrew. He said they use the same process as with other beers, and the cost is also similar, about 7 Singaporean dollars (around $5 U.S.) per can when bought in a supermarket. Wee-Tuck said he believes the beer has shifted how some in Singapore view NEWater.“They think it tastes funny," he said. “When put into a beer, it changes the mindset. Most people can't tell the difference.”As problems with water scarcity grow, there is increasing embrace of the use of treated wastewater, said Saroj Kumar Jha, the World Bank Group's global water department director, who participated in the water management panel in the Singapore pavilion. Traveling to over 50 countries in the last two years, he said leaders have frequently told him it's important not to use the term “wastewater,” and instead call it “used water.”After the panel concluded, Jha and the other panelists opened NEWBrews and toasted. “It's really good,” said Jha. “It's the fourth time I've had it.”“This year," he added with a laugh. “Not today.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Climate
Water

California just set rules that trade short-term climate gain for long-term health and safety

California regulators just voted to ignore the long-term environmental and social costs of factory-farm incentives. Our climate solutions must not come at the expense of environmental justice.

As long-serving members of the California Air Resources Board, we have prioritized environmental justice and community health, championing efforts to combat climate change. However, we believe state policies must thoughtfully address the consequences for communities least able to bear the associated costs.This concern applies to CARB’s newly adopted amendments to accelerate the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, or LCFS, which we opposed. The fuel standard program, established in 2011, aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation by capping the carbon intensity of fuels. The current program mandates a 20% reduction in fuel carbon intensity by 2030. The proposed amendments push this to a 30% cut by 2030 and 90% by 2045.Faster implementation, however, risks increasing gasoline prices — a significant burden on low-income communities already struggling with costs. This issue has attracted attention from the media, legislators and the public. Beyond financial concerns, the LCFS has had another, less-publicized consequence: a dramatic transformation of California’s dairy industry.Over the past decade, many dairies have shifted their priorities driven by LCFS incentives, with troubling public health consequences.California’s dairy industry has historically focused on milk production, but today, many dairies are producing renewable natural gas by capturing methane from manure. The LCFS propels this trend through California’s carbon credit system, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under this program, entities earn and sell credits for cutting emissions, and dairies profit by converting methane into renewable natural gas. However, the system rewards larger-scale manure production, as more methane generates more credits and profits. This creates a perverse incentive, prioritizing pollution-heavy practices over sustainable, low-impact solutions. Capturing methane, a greenhouse gas over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term, is vital for combating climate change. Yet, the methods to achieve reductions matter. The new amendments inadvertently incentivize the growth of mega-dairies now disproportionately concentrated in the Central Valley, where land is cheaper than other parts of the state — a region already grappling with environmental and health challenges.As mega-dairies expand, their impacts on local communities worsen. According to comments from the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, a climate, health and equity organization working in the Central Valley, these facilities exacerbate air pollution, groundwater depletion and nitrate contamination, disproportionately affecting low-income Latino communities.The promise of renewable natural gas as a “bridge fuel” is fundamentally flawed. Instead of transitioning toward sustainable decarbonization, the LCFS now encourages the expansion of large-scale dairies to maximize methane generation. Dairies are rewarded not for reducing methane emissions but for capturing what they generate, perpetuating pollution-heavy practices. More waste generates means more profit.While capturing methane contributes to California’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, the collateral damage is undeniable. Mega-dairies are among the largest ammonia emitters, contributing to fine particulate matter pollution that causes respiratory illnesses and premature death. The Central Valley, already burdened with some of the worst air quality in the nation, cannot withstand additional harm. Moreover, nitrate runoff from manure continues to contaminate drinking water, disproportionately affecting disadvantaged communities reliant on domestic wells.Accelerating LCFS mandates will only hasten the expansion of mega-dairies.CARB has already undermined efforts to regulate livestock methane emissions. While we successfully pushed for regulations to begin by 2028, a last-minute change allowed mega-dairies to continue to profit from “avoided methane” credits based on flawed assumptions, encouraging herd consolidation and pollution-heavy liquid manure systems. Sustainable alternatives, such as dry handling or pasture-based systems, which generate far fewer pollutants, remain unsupported. For these reasons, we were on the losing side of a 12-2 vote by the board on the LCFS amendment.Methane is an immediate climate threat, and failure to address it would be catastrophic. However, ignoring the long-term environmental and social costs of factory-farm gas development prioritizes short-term climate gains over public health and equity. Our climate solutions must not come at the expense of environmental justice.The LCFS program could be improved by capping the size and number of dairy operations eligible for methane incentives. Without such limits, we risk entrenching an industry whose environmental harms outweigh its climate benefits.Additionally, CARB must prioritize sustainable methane reduction alternatives, including practices that reduce pollution at the source rather than perpetuating harmful systems. Setting these limits would create a fairer and more effective framework for addressing emissions while protecting vulnerable communities.Fighting climate change is not just about dairies. It is about choosing a path that doesn’t result in more harm to vulnerable communities. For the sake of our air, water, and public health, we must ensure our solutions work for everyone, not just for those who profit from pollution.Dean Florez, a member of the California Air Resources Board, is a former California Senate majority leader. Diane Takvorian, a member of the California Air Resources Board, is the co-founder and former executive director of the Environmental Health Coalition in San Diego/Tijuana.

Climate
Health
Pollution

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