Summary/Abstract
The societal response to human induced climate change will unfold over many decades, and society can anticipate false starts and reverses, alternating periods of innovation and stagnation, and dramatic reversals of direction in light of new knowledge and continuing experience. This article engages with these issues, considering the significance of CDR approaches for climate policy. It is organized in three sections: the first provides a brief introduction to CDR; the second explores its possible place in long term climate policy; the third considers nearer term policy issues. This article argues that in coming years the CDR-related policy challenge is to develop a nuanced approach, which differentiates among options and the specific ways they are to be governed, and which trials them at modest scale to allow learning from experience, the operation of social feed-back mechanisms, and the careful adjustment of regulatory frameworks. While some CDR approaches may offer useful additions to the mitigation ‘tool kit’, issues of cost, environmental risk, physical limits and tension with other societal practices mean they can represent only part of any solution.