Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies have the potential to help counter global warming by lowering the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They might therefore be needed alongside mitigation technologies (e.g. solar panels) that help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere in the first place. However, there is reason to think that the two kinds of technologies interact, and that GGRs might delay or deter the use of mitigation technologies in various ways. In fact, it is possible that even doing research about GGRs, even just talking about their potential, could have such a deterrence effect. In this way, effectively combining GGRs and mitigation technologies may be more difficult than often assumed. And this matters, because current climate policy targets - necessary if we are to avoid dangerous climate change - are based on scenarios that rely on the promise of GGR technologies becoming available and being deployed at large scale. They also rely on the (implicit) assumption that there will not be a substantive mitigation deterrence effect. Therefore, this project sets out to study the likelihood and significance of any such effects, to learn more about how they might work, how serious they might become, and what could be done to counter them. Research has already demonstrated ways in which making promises about future technology matters in the here and now. We have previously researched how promises about technical fixes to the climate change problem have shaped (and been shaped by) economic, political and cultural processes in society. More specifically, we have studied how promises about carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology have sustained market-based emissions trading policy, which have failed to stimulate the actual use of CCS. And we have studied how the threat (the negative promise, as it were) of risky and politically challenging solar radiation management technologies has made the promise of GGR technologies more acceptable. Using the same kind of approach, we aim to explore how GGR promises shape economic, political and cultural processes in society, and so - indirectly, potentially impact on mitigation technologies and practices. We will study the evolution to date of promises of GGR technologies, and develop scenarios for how they might evolve in the future and impact on (deter) mitigation technologies. We will test these scenarios, by deliberating on them with existing and potential GGR stakeholders. We will engage with GGR researchers and developers, and also with others with reasons to be interested in the future of GGRs - such as other climate researchers, financiers, policy makers and environmental NGOs. This way we will learn about some aspects of mitigation deterrence, but also prompt key GGR stakeholders to be more alert to mitigation deterrence risks and their potential roles in causing and/or countering them. We expect to develop knowledge about mitigation deterrence mechanisms and impacts, help stimulate awareness about mitigation deterrence risks, and help develop strategies to counter them. Learning more about this will benefit all of us in the sense of improved climate policy. Climate policy makers and researchers need to understand mitigation deterrence effects and their potential significance. Those closely involved in researching, developing and funding GGRs, and all those involved in debating their futures, will also benefit, in terms of getting help to reflect on and develop strategies to handle mitigation deterrence. There will also be a direct academic contribution to literatures on mitigation deterrence and closely related concepts across a range of social science literatures. The project will develop a unique contribution to these literatures, drawing on cultural political economy theory, and informed by the extensive engagement with GGR stakeholders undertaken.

Meeting the Paris climate change commitments will be extraordinarily challenging, and even if they are met, may require extensive global deployment of greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies resulting in net negative emissions. If certain major emitters do not meet their Paris commitments and/or wider international cooperation is reduced then the trajectory needed to reduce emissions to Paris levels after a delay will be even more severe, potentially leading to the need for even greater reliance on such net negative emissions technologies. At present, the technical feasibility, economics, implementation mechanisms and wider social and environmental implications of GGR technologies remain relatively poorly understood. It is highly uncertain that GGR technologies can be implemented at the scales likely to be required to avoid dangerous climate change and without causing significant co-disbenefits or unintended consequences. Our GGR proposal presents a unique combination of a multi-scale assessment of the technical performance of GGR technologies with an analysis of their political economy and social license to operate, with a particular focus on how these elements vary around the world and how such considerations impact region-specific GGR technology portfolios. Currently, some portray GGR technologies as a panacea and virtually the only way of meeting aggressive climate targets - an essential backstop technology or a 'bridge' to a low-carbon future. One part of our project is to work with the models of the global economy (integrated assessment models) and better reflect these technologies within those models but also to use models at different scales (global, regional, national, laboratory scales) to understand the technologies better. We also seek to better understand how deployment of these technologies interact with the climate system and the carbon cycle and what the implications are for the timings of wide-scale rollout. By contrast, sceptics have expressed concerns over moral hazard, the idea that pursuing these options may divert public and political attention from options. Some critics have even invoked terms such 'unicorns', or 'magical thinking' to describe the view that many GGR technologies may be illusory. We will seek to understand these divergent framings and explicitly capture what could emerge as important social and political constraints on wide-scale deployment. As with nuclear power, will many environmentalists come to view GGR technologies as an unacceptable option? Understanding the potential scaling up of GGR technologies requires an understanding of social and political concerns as well as technical and resource constraints and incorporating them in engineering, economic and climate models. This aspect of our proposal necessarily brings together social science, engineering and environmental sciences. What is the biggest challenge to scaling up BECCS for example? Is it the creation of the sustainable biomass supply chain, the deployment of CO2 capture technology or the transport and storage infrastructure that is rate limiting? Or is it more likely the social acceptability of this technology? Further, we will provide insight into the value of international and inter-regional cooperation in coordinating GGR efforts. For e.g., would it make more sense for the UK to import biomass, convert it to electricity and sequester the CO2, or would it be preferable pay for this to happen elsewhere? Conversely, how might the UK benefit from utilising our relatively well characterised and extensive CO2 storage infrastructure in the North Sea to store CO2 on behalf of both the UK and others? More generally, we will explore how stakeholders in key regions view the suite of GGR technologies. Finally, we will quantify the option value of GGR - what is the value in early deployment of GGR technologies? How does it provide flexibility in meeting our near term carbon targets?