Tyndall Centre research is included in Committee on Climate Change Sixth Carbon Budget report
15 January 2021
Clair Gough contributed to a summary note on greenhouse gas removal policies which concluded that strong political leadership is essential to deliver sustainable GGR without a reduction in mitigation ambition.
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Clair Gough, working with Nem Vaughan at the University of East Anglia, contributed to the Committee on Climate Change Sixth Carbon Budget Policies report with a summary note presenting results from a roundtable discussion on the challenges and policy design principles that could bring greenhouse gas removal (GGR) approaches to market and deliver sustainable GGR in the UK. Policy options for both nature-based and engineered removals were considered, including the potential for bringing forward both general and differentiated approaches to scale up GGRs. The note identified six principles to inform UK GGR policy development relating to timescales, permanence, transparency, fairness, clarity, flexibility. These principles were backed up by a set of clear recommendations for policies to support effective and sustainable GGR in the UK.
The note also concluded that incentives and policy mechanisms alone are not enough to deliver sustainable GGR. Strong political leadership is essential as there will be opportunities and challenges for different sectors and communities across the UK. The amount of GGR needed to achieve net zero is determined by decarbonisation efforts elsewhere in the economy and across society. It is important that mitigation ambition is not weakened by a reliance on over-optimistic levels of GGR.