Summary/Abstract
This article reviews the main strategies for climate change abatement, namely conventional mitigation, negative emissions and radiative forcing geoengineering. Conventional mitigation technologies focus on reducing fossil-based CO2 emissions. Negative emissions technologies (NETs) are aiming to capture and sequester atmospheric carbon to reduce carbon dioxide levels. Finally, geoengineering techniques of radiative forcing alter the earth’s radiative energy budget to stabilize or reduce global temperatures. The section on NETs carries out an extensive literature review on the main technologies and techniques, their current state of development, perceived limitations and risks as well as social and policy implications.
The paper finds that conventional mitigation efforts alone are not sufficient to meet the targets stipulated by the Paris agreement; therefore, the utilization of alternative routes appears inevitable. While various technologies presented may still be at an early stage of development, biogenic-based sequestration techniques are to a certain extent mature and can be deployed immediately.