Page 95 - Managing Global Warming

Greenhouse gas removal and zero emissions energy production 65

policymakers, misleading them into regarding greenhouse gas removal as the solu-
tion to the problem of climate change rather than an adjunct in a complex policy
regime aimed at managing it heuristically. Balancing emissions reductions and
greenhouse gas removal will be a complex process involving a range of
interdependent political, social, and economic factors. However, substantial urgent
investment in empirical greenhouse gas removal research and development is a
no-regrets policy given that even though the ultimate requirement for, and means
of delivery of greenhouse gas removal are presently uncertain, the need for a signif-
icant amount of it is not. It is the responsibility of today’s policymakers not to deny
their counterparts in coming decades the ability to fine tune greenhouse gas removal
policy by recklessly failing to undertake the initial empirical research on which all
future greenhouse gas removal must depend.
The interdependence of policies highlights the link between the reduction of
fossil fuel consumption and the increase of zero emissions energy consumption.
In almost every plausible scenario, the ZEE Index is between 10 and 14 implying
a quantum change in the dependence on zeroemissions energy.Innumeric terms,
the 2014 zero emissions energy consumption of 66EJ, of which less than 5EJ came
from solar and wind, must increase to something of the order of 1500EJ/yr by the
end of the century.
The resources required for both greenhouse gas removal and the zero emissions
energy are each of the same order as those currently devoted to global mining of
all mineral and fuel resources. To develop simultaneously both these new activities
at scale will present an unprecedented challenge for proximate generations. Today’s
policymakers have a responsibility to lighten that burden to the extent they can. And
today’s consumers and taxpayers have an obligation not to frustrate the shift away
from fossil fuels or the investment of public funds in zero emissions energy and green-
house gas removal research and development, by resisting the market interventions
necessary to make them happen.

References

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[2] Matthews HD, Zickfeld K. Climate response to zeroed emissions of greenhouse gases and
aerosols. Nat Clim Chang 2012;2:338–41.
[3] Vichi M, Navarra A, Fogli PG. Adjustment of the natural ocean carbon cycle to negative
emission rates. Clim Chang 2013;118:105–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-
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[4] IPCC. Climate change 2013—the physical science basis: Working Group I contribution to
the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. New York:
Cambridge University Press; 2014.
[5] US Department of Commerce N. NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Division—The NOAA
Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) n.d. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.
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[6] IEA. Key World Energy Statistics 2017. International Energy Agency; 2017.