Little big: Sizing up the risk of mitigation deterrence from carbon removal

Nils Markusson ()
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Nils Markusson: Lancaster University

Climatic Change, 2025, vol. 178, issue 7, No 8, 8 pages

Abstract: Abstract The risk that overall mitigation efforts will be deterred by the pursuit of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is real. Some awareness about this risk among climate policy stakeholders appears to be widespread, but it is not clear that the risk is being taken very seriously. This essay identifies arguments for thinking that mitigation deterrence from CDR is not a big risk. These arguments revolve around removal being too small a thing to deter anything, and that other things are worse for deterring overall mitigation efforts. The essay presents counterarguments, facilitated by a shift of the perspective on technologies from being physical, stand-alone, apolitical things, to one where technologies also have discursive effects, are part of the wider phenomenon of technology in general, and are entangled with politics. The essay aims to strengthen the concern about mitigation deterrence from CDR, and so help justify efforts to pre-empt it.

Keywords: Carbon dioxide removal; Mitigation deterrence; Risk; Politics of technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10584-025-03984-7

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