REPORT
Integrity in the transition: the case for a new Australian carbon removals framework
Climate change demands that we reframe the limited resource of carbon removals as a common good to benefit all
Produced in partnership with Dr Kate Dooley
Carbon removals play a crucial role in the transition to net zero, but carbon removal into land is limited by sustainability constraints that are frequently ignored in the current Australian policy landscape.
A lack of scientific rigour in the allocation of removals, incorrect assumptions about the relationship between removals and emissions, and inflated assumptions about carbon removal capacity can lead to overreliance on removals in place of emissions reduction.
Climate change demands that we reframe the limited resource of carbon removals as a common good to benefit all.
Australia needs a national carbon removals budget and a governance framework to allocate removals fairly to the most deserving uses.
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Carbon removal is a scarce resource, one which not all countries or companies have the same capacity to develop and deploy, meaning we need a Carbon Removal Budget to help equitably manage both supply and demand."
Dr Injy Johnstone
Research Fellow at the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group
Limited adherence to science leads to meaningless net zero pledges and over reliance on carbon removals
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
This requires CO2 emissions to reach net-zero globally by 2050, with other greenhouse gases reaching net-zero around a decade later.
However, the lack of adherence to scientific principles about how carbon moves between the atmosphere, land, and oceans as well as below-ground sediments has led to unintended, and sometimes deliberate, ambiguity in net-zero policies, pledges and actions. This includes the pace and timing of fossil fuel reduction, responsibility for reducing emissions, and the specific means by which this will be achieved.
This has led to a proliferation of potentially meaningless net-zero climate pledges from both countries and corporations that miscalculate carbon impacts, over-rely on future carbon dioxide removals and delay real emissions cuts.
Over reliance on land based carbon removals is a problem at the global, national and corporate level
Net-zero is a global goal. While CO2 emissions must reach net-zero by 2050 to maintain a chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, how this translates to the individual country or corporate level is a complex mix of equity, economics and policy.
At all three levels there is evidence of misuse and over-reliance on removals in place of true emissions reduction, setting us off course to reach net zero by 2050.
GLOBAL
The Land Gap Report assessed national net-zero strategies globally and found that approximately 1 billion hectares of land would be required to meet the carbon dioxide removal pledges of all countries. This is more than the combined areas of South Africa, India, Turkey and the European Union.
NATIONAL
Australia is a member of a small group of high-income, high-emitting countries that are responsible for almost 75 percent of land use for carbon removal within climate pledges.
This risks insufficient decarbonisation ambition in sectors like power generation and heavy industry.
CORPORATE
A recent assessment of 10 of Australia’s biggest corporations net-zero pledges (AGL, BlueScope Steel, Cleanaway, Coles, Origin Energy, Qantas, Rio Tinto, South32, Telstra & Woolworths) found half the companies are using voluntary credits to count towards their emissions reduction targets, in place of making real emissions cuts.
Where to from here
Now is the critical time to ensure that Australia's goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 is:
based on science
prioritises reduction ahead of removal, and
takes an integrated approach to achieving climate and biodiversity goals.
There is a role for the Australian government to establish a framework for the sustainable and ethical use of carbon dioxide removals in Australia by introducing a sustainable national carbon removals budget and a governance framework to allocate removals fairly to the most deserving uses – rather than the highest bidders. This is needed to ensure we achieve the transition to net zero.
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Currently, the need for removals is driven by a demand-side approach - that is, where carbon dioxide removals are continually scaled up to meet the demand left by insufficient emissions reductions. This can lead to unreasonable demands for land and land-use change, which is in tension with the goals of food security, ecosystem resilience, and the rights of local communities.
A supply-side approach would involve considering the limits of sustainability for carbon dioxide removals, taking into account the social and environmental impacts of their use. This would require estimating the sustainable carbon dioxide removal budget based on socio-ecological thresholds, rather than economic modelling based on land use trade-offs, to understand how much carbon dioxide removal we can deploy without causing harm to our society and the environment. -
To effectively manage a national carbon dioxide removal budget, we require the development of a governance framework to allocate supply to the most legitimate uses of carbon removals. Simply relying on carbon markets, where carbon removals are sold to the highest bidder, isn't enough. There are critical questions about timing, approach, and responsibility for using carbon removals, that require overarching policy direction that cannot be left to the market.