‘Beyond Cost and Carbon’ is a project at the University of East Anglia funded by the Philip Leverhulme Prize awarded to Dr Naomi Vaughan and undertaken in collaboration with Dr Aimie Hope. It runs May 23 – Dec 25.
Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) methods have a pivotal role in achieving net zero emissions and limiting the impacts of climate change. They include a diverse range of technologies (e.g., BECCS, DACCS) and land management strategies (e.g., afforestation, peatland restoration) for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it.
The methods, amount and timing of carbon dioxide removal is impacted by, and has implications for, decarbonising energy, land use change, the earth system response and global society. Uncertainties in each of these components, combined with the rapid pace of development of CDR methods and policy, make assessing the feasibility of CDR methods challenging.
In this project we propose to move beyond considerations of cost and carbon to encompass underrepresented insights on the social, political, cultural, and institutional aspects of the feasibility of CDR. By going beyond cost and carbon we hope that the real-world complexities which will impact the efficacy of CDR methods can be better factored into feasibility assessments and associated decision-making.
We plan to work with UK stakeholders (policy, civil society, and business) using co-creation type approaches to help to better communicate and integrate findings (e.g., from social science) with more quantitative information.
