Countries' Plans to Remove Carbon Are Not Strong Enough

Countries' plans to remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere will not be enough to limit global warming.

KOMPAS/TOTOK WIJAYANTO

Haze of pollution covers the PLTU in the Babelan area, Bekasi, West Java, Tuesday (25/7/2023).

JAKARTA, KOMPAS - The plans of countries to eliminate carbon emissions from the atmosphere will not be enough to comply with the 1.5 degree Celsius warming limit set by the Paris Agreement. More ambitious plans and implementations are needed to prevent the impacts of the climate crisis from becoming worse.

The results of this study were conducted by the University of East Anglia (UEA), England. The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, May 3 2024, was led by the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) based in Berlin, Germany, and involved an international team of scientists.

Since 2010, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been conducting annual measurements of emission gaps. This is the difference between countries' climate protection promises and the actual efforts needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or at least below 2 degrees Celsius.

The UNEP Emissions Gap Report clearly states that climate policy requires more ambition. Meanwhile, the latest study from UEA explicitly applies this analysis concept to the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

"In the Emissions Gap Report, carbon elimination is only indirectly taken into account," said William Lamb, the lead author of this study from the MCC applied sustainability working group, quoted from the official UEA website on Monday (May 6, 2024).

KOMPAS/WISNU WIDIANTORO

Smoke fumes from the chimney of the West Java 2 Steam Power Plant, also known as the Pelabuhan Ratu Power Plant, can be seen in Pantai Cipatuguran, Jayanti Village, Palabuhanratu Subdistrict, Sukabumi Regency, West Java, in early January 2023.

The results of this study emphasize that annual carbon emissions caused by human activities could increase if national targets are fully implemented. The calculated amount of carbon is a maximum of 500 million tonnes or 0.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide (GtCO₂) in 2030 and a maximum of 1.9 GtCO₂ in 2050.

This contrasts with the 5.1 GtCO₂ increase required in the focus scenario with the main strategy of increasing the use of renewable energy and eliminating fossil energy. Referring to this scenario, the gap in 2050 is recorded at 3.2 GtCO₂ (obtained from the figure of 5.1 GtCO₂ minus a maximum of 1.9 GtCO_{2< /sub>).}

Additionally, new carbon removal options, such as air filter systems, remove only 0.002 GtCO₂ per year from the atmosphere. This figure is in stark contrast to the 3 GtCO₂ reduction through conventional options, such as reforestation.

Also read: Doubtful, Commitment of Most Countries to Achieve Net Zero Emissions

According to Lamb, the calculation of emission reduction efforts in this study still needs to be refined. However, at least the results of this study are increasingly opening up the discourse regarding how much carbon removal is needed to fulfill the Paris Agreement.

He emphasized that the measure of climate protection is clean emissions or the amount of emissions produced minus disposal. "This waste management provides new requirements for policy makers and may even become a major pillar of climate protection in the second half of this century," he said.

Emissions from industry

In another separate study, researchers have shown that harmful emissions from the industrial sector could be reduced by up to 85 percent worldwide. The iron and steel, chemicals, cement, and food and beverage industrial sectors have been shown to contribute around a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

A recent study led by researchers from the University of Leeds, England, found that decarbonization of this sector is technically possible with a combination of various technologies. The complete report of this study has been published in the journal Joule, January 31 2024.

The report also shows that electrical technologies, such as electric steam crackers, which are key equipment for producing petrochemical products, could theoretically play a role in decarbonization efforts. In fact, emissions directly reduced in the industrial sector with this technology can reach 40-100 percent.

Also read: Second National Emission Reduction Document in Line with 1.5 Degree Celsius Target

In addition, other new electrification technologies can also help reduce emissions from processes that consume a lot of energy, such as steel, cement, and ceramics. Electrification in the industrial sector may not have been widely considered by many parties.

"Our findings represent a significant step forward in helping to design industrial decarbonization strategies. This discovery is a very encouraging prospect concerning the health of the earth in the future," said the industrial decarbonization researcher at the Leeds School of Chemical and Process Engineering, who is also the lead author of this study, Ahmed Gailani.