Carbon removal for a just transition

There is growing acknowledgement of the need to remove and durably store carbon dioxide. Even with dramatic emissions reductions, achieving net zero will require the creation of new infrastructures, institutions, and processes for carbon removal on the scale of major existing industries. Removal technologies are in development but their material configurations in functioning socio-technical systems are as yet undetermined. As private and public investments flow into research, development, and deployment, the foundations of an emerging carbon removal industry are being laid down via policy decisions and presumptions that will shape the field for decades or more. Here we argue that although deployment of carbon removal is necessary to underpin a just transition, its emerging configurations and governance run counter to just transition principles. With reference to findings from an expert convening, we highlight a set of critical problems and inequities within the emerging political-economic model of the nascent sector. While scholars have previously examined the role of carbon removal in climate policy, and the technical and economic conditions for its effective delivery, we focus here on the prospect of radical interventions to reorient its practical delivery to support a just transition. We suggest interventions to guarantee that carbon removal is done for just purposes (e.g. not to allow high emitters to continue emitting), and ensure that carbon removal can be done sustainably and responsibly at the scales imagined. We call for mandatory substantive participation in decision-making, particularly amongst marginalized groups. We look beyond commodification, markets, and private ownership as models for deploying carbon removal and argue that fossil interests and historical emitters must be held financially responsible for carbon removal without being placed at its helm.Carbon removal can – and must – be part of a just transition.As a nascent carbon removal sector emerges, the status quo trajectory suggests significant need for political economic reorientation to align with principles of a just transition.Radical policy ideas worth exploring further include: purchasing pools to replace offset markets; government support for public and community carbon removal providers; broad and independent public deliberation; and a global reparations fund.