Imperial College London
Portrait Picture

Professor Adam Hawkes

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering

Professor of Energy Systems
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 9300a.hawkes

 
 
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Location

 

RODH.503Roderic Hill BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Grant:2021:1748-9326/ac0749,
author = {Grant, N and Hawkes, A and Mittal, S and Gambhir, A},
doi = {1748-9326/ac0749},
journal = {Environmental Research Letters},
title = {Confronting mitigation deterrence in low-carbon scenarios},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0749},
volume = {16},
year = {2021}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) features heavily in low-carbon scenarios, where it often substitutes for emission reductions in both the near-term and long-term, enabling temperature targets to be met at lower cost. There are major concerns around the scale of CDR deployment in many low-carbon scenarios, and the risk that anticipated future CDR could dilute incentives to reduce emissions now, a phenomenon known as mitigation deterrence. Here we conduct an in-depth analysis into the relationship between emissions reduction and emissions removal in a global integrated assessment model. We explore the impact of CDR on low-carbon scenarios, illustrating how the pathway for the 2020s is highly sensitive to assumptions around CDR availability. Using stochastic optimisation, we demonstrate that accounting for uncertainty in future CDR deployment provides a strong rationale to increase rates of mitigation in the 2020s. A 20% chance of CDR deployment failure requires additional emissions reduction in 2030 of 3–17 GtCO2. Finally, we introduce new scenarios which demonstrate the risks of mitigation deterrence and the benefits of formally separating CDR and emissions reduction as climate strategies. Continual mitigation deterrence across the time-horizon leads to the temperature goals being breached by 0.2–0.3 °C. If CDR is treated as additional to emissions reduction, up to an additional 700–800 GtCO2 can be removed from the atmosphere by 2100, reducing end-of-century warming by up to 0.5 °C. This could put sub-1.5 °C targets within reach but requires that CDR is additional to, rather than replaces, emission reductions.
AU  - Grant,N
AU  - Hawkes,A
AU  - Mittal,S
AU  - Gambhir,A
DO  - 1748-9326/ac0749
PY  - 2021///
SN  - 1748-9326
TI  - Confronting mitigation deterrence in low-carbon scenarios
T2  - Environmental Research Letters
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0749
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/90232
VL  - 16
ER  -
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