Summary/Abstract
UNEP’s Global Resources Outlook highlights and supports climate policies to remove atmospheric carbon in its “Towards Sustainability” scenario, specifically policies targeted towards the deployment of BECCs, DAC, and reforestation activities. This policy package supports a technology subsidy that covers capital and operating costs of BECCS and DAC, with deployment ramping up from 2020 to 2030 to achieve 1.2 GtCO2e of CDR per year from 2030 through to 2100. Like any 1.5oC scenario, this assumes that a range of technical challenges will be overcome to allow large scale deployment of technologies that have not yet been demonstrated. To manage concerns about competition for land and upward pressure on food prices, BECCS accounts for one quarter of total CDR, contributing 0.3 GtCO2e per year and 17,250 TWH of ‘negative emissions’ energy once mature, while DAC contributes 0.9 GtCO2e per year from 2030. The cost of the subsidy declines gradually after 2030, as technology costs fall. The subsidy is funded by high-income countries in proportion to per capita GDP above US$15,000 (in real 2011 dollars), consistent with capacity to pay and general notions of historical responsibility. Biosequestration from reafforestation and restored native habitat receives a subsidy at the same rate per tonne of carbon as the levy (which begins at US$15/tCO2e in 2020, rising rapidly to US$100/tCO2e in 2030, after which it increases by 5 per cent per year above inflation).