IIn an ad hoc statement from the National Academy Leopoldina, eight leading climate and energy experts from Ampel are urging rapid action in order to be able to remove climate-damaging carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the long term as soon as possible and neutralize it from the exhaust air of large industrial companies – or even use it for profit. “A national strategy for carbon management must be advanced with great urgency and its implementation must be initiated immediately,” says the six-page paper. The plans outlined by the federal government have so far “not been convincing”. Corrections are also necessary in some areas of the traffic light key point concepts that were only presented in February.
With the separation and storage or use of CO2 (CCS or CCU), a new phase of climate policy begins for scientists. The strategy is called carbon management. For a long time, the issue was only treated behind the political scenes as a last exit strategy. The biggest concern, particularly among scientists and climate activists, was that the urgently needed reductions in emissions from coal, oil and gas under the Paris Climate Agreement would no longer be consistently addressed once technical solutions to the subsequent elimination of CO2 emissions were pursued.
Reducing emissions is not enough
Nothing changed about that. And the Leopoldina statement also makes it clear that rapid emissions reductions have priority. However, according to the authors, “the climate goals cannot be achieved through emissions reductions alone.” The crucial goal – climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest – can only be achieved if, in the long term, at least 60 to 130 million tons of carbon dioxide are neutralized annually in the country through CCS or CCU through carbon management. This is only necessary due to the inevitable emissions from parts of Germany's strong heavy industry – cement production, for example – where fossil resources continue to be used despite reduction measures.
The Leopoldina authors clearly rejected the plans of international oil and gas companies to extend the use of fossil fuels with the help of CCS and CCU, which were discussed primarily at and after the climate summit in Dubai: “This should not change the use of fossil fuels “In general, the paper emphasizes that it is not yet possible to predict when and to what extent these technologies will be usable. In many cases the costs are still too high to scale up the systems sufficiently, and the technologies such as the direct extraction and chemical conversion of CO2 from the air are still immature and inefficient.
The experts are apparently concerned with preventing the wrong planning course being set and bad investments being prevented. The paper entitled “Key elements of carbon management” points out that, for reasons of efficiency, the plants that use the direct extraction of CO2 from the air and convert it into products should only be built on a large scale in suitable locations – where “dry Air and low energy costs”. This does not apply to Germany. In general, it is important that effective carbon management does not make sense on a national scale alone. Rather, the national strategy should be developed from the outset as part of a European and international network.
Don't just save under the sea
The plan and the current legislation, according to which the permanent storage and disposal of CO2 underground (CCS) should only be possible under seabeds, is criticized. This is “an expression of a strategy to avoid political disputes over storage locations”. From a scientific point of view, there is nothing against storage on the mainland. The use and protection of moors as natural carbon stores also need to be revised legally. Drainage systems that reduce moor areas would have to be removed. The authors also speak out against the expansion of fields and forests in order to produce bioenergy crops on a large scale from these soils. This is not compatible with long-term, ecologically sustainable land use.
There is currently no uniform, functioning market for trading CO2 certificates from coal management. According to the researchers, this too has priority. Germany must create framework conditions that enable new “business models and stable markets”. In addition to the Leopoldina President Gerald Haug, the Potsdam climate economist Ottmar Edenhofer, the Nuremberg economist Veronika Grimm, the Hamburg climate researcher Jochem Marotzke, the Jülich process engineer Wolfgang Marquard, the energy storage expert Robert Schlögl, the catalysis expert Ferdi Schüth and energy expert were involved in drawing up the recommendations Ulrich Wagner.
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