AUTHOR=McLaren Duncan P. , Tyfield David P. , Willis Rebecca , Szerszynski Bronislaw , Markusson Nils O. TITLE=Beyond “Net-Zero”: A Case for Separate Targets for Emissions Reduction and Negative Emissions JOURNAL=Frontiers in Climate VOLUME=1 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/climate/articles/10.3389/fclim.2019.00004 DOI=10.3389/fclim.2019.00004 ISSN=2624-9553 ABSTRACT=

Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately from existing and future targets for emissions reduction. Failure to make such a separation has already hampered climate policy, exaggerating the expected future contribution of negative emissions in climate models, while also obscuring the extent and pace of the investment needed to deliver negative emissions. Separation would help minimize the negative impacts that promises and deployments of negative emissions could have on emissions reduction, arising from effects such as temporal trade-offs, excessive offsetting, and technological lock-in. Benefits for international, national, local, organizational, and sectoral planning would arise from greater clarity over the role and timing of negative emissions alongside accelerated emissions reduction.