Feasibility of Afforestation and Biomass energy with carbon capture storage for Greenhouse Gas Removal (FAB GGR)

预计未来气候变化将对人类社会的许多方面（如健康、粮食供应、海平面上升）和自然生态系统（如生物多样性的丧失）产生总体负面影响。2015年12月在巴黎，各国同意将全球平均气温的升幅控制在远低于工业化前2摄氏度的水平，并努力将升温控制在1.5摄氏度以内。这是一个巨大的挑战，因为为保持在这些温度目标范围内而允许的二氧化碳排放“预算”大部分已经用完，而全球二氧化碳排放仍在增加。目前限制气候变化负面影响的努力集中在减少温室气体的数量，特别是二氧化碳，我们排放到大气中，通过改变我们发电和使用电力的方式，我们为交通工具提供动力的方式，以及我们为家庭供暖或制冷的方式。然而，要将全球气温升幅控制在远低于工业化前2摄氏度的水平，还需要我们积极地大规模清除大气中的温室气体。科学家和经济学家提出的两种方法是：(1)种植森林来锁住碳；(2)利用能源作物或木材和农业工业产生的废物来发电，并在发电时捕获并储存在地下。这两种方法都需要大面积的土地来种植能源作物或树木。该项目将调查依赖这些二氧化碳去除方法的现实程度，以及对气候、土地利用、生态系统以及更广泛的社会和政治制度的后果。我们的目标是更准确地确定这些方法能够在给定的工作量下从大气中去除的二氧化碳量。许多因素促成了这一计算，其中一些是高度不确定的。例如，碳循环将如何对能源作物或森林的土地利用的巨大转变作出反应。社会因素也很关键。这些重要技术的发展取决于对社会反应的理解，以及刺激吸收的正确政策。我们将使用定量模型和定性社会科学方法的跨学科组合来解决这些问题。这些模型代表了从农场到全球尺度的地球系统的相关方面，包括土地、土壤、植物和大气。一个关键目标是对所选技术对碳循环的影响进行全面的（称为“结果性的”）生命周期评估，从供应链规模到特定发电厂，再到英国国家规模，再到整个地球系统。我们的目标不仅限于此，还要考虑这些技术对社会和政策、气候系统、土地利用和生态系统服务的更广泛影响和权衡。这些影响包括对其他温室气体释放的影响、对气候系统的物理影响（例如改变陆地表面对阳光的反射率）、对水循环和水质的影响、对生物多样性的影响以及对景观娱乐价值的影响。与定量分析一起，我们将对与实际实施项目所选择的两种GGR方法相关的社会、政策和治理不确定性、影响和瓶颈进行全面评估。该报告借鉴了研究团队开发的最先进的社会科学方法，以审查和分析公众和利益相关者如何看待和应对新兴技术，包括二氧化碳去除技术。财团团队将每6个月举行一次会议，交换意见，相互学习。在项目结束时，我们将向政策制定者展示我们最重要的发现，以便他们能够更好地理解依赖这些方法是多么现实。

GGR Consortium: FAB GGRFuture climate change is projected to have overall negative impacts on many aspects of human society (e.g. health, availability of food, rising sea levels) and on natural ecosystems (e.g. loss of biodiversity). In Paris in December 2015, countries agreed to limit the increase in global mean temperature to well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. This poses a phenomenal challenge because most of the allowable 'budget' of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to stay within these temperature targets has already been spent, and global CO2 emissions are still increasing.Current efforts to limit the negative impacts of climate change focus on reducing the amount of greenhouse gases especially CO2 that we put into our atmosphere, by changing how we generate and use electricity, how we power our transport, and how we heat or cool our homes. However, keeping the increase in global temperature to well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial will also require us to actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere on a very large scale. Two ways that scientists and economists suggest we could do this are by (1) planting forests to lock up carbon and (2) using energy crops or waste from the timber and agricultural industries to generate electricity and capture and store underground the CO2 produced when the electricity is made. Both of these approaches require large areas of land on which to grow the energy crops or trees.This project will investigate how realistic it is to depend on these methods of CO2 removal, and what the consequences would be for the climate, land-use, ecosystems, and wider social and political systems.We aim to more accurately determine the amount of CO2 these methods are able to remove from the atmosphere for a given amount of effort. Many factors contribute to this calculation, some of which are highly uncertain. For example, how the carbon cycle will respond to a large shift in land use for energy crops or forests. Social factors are also critical. The development of these important technologies depends on understanding social reactions and the right policies being in place to stimulate uptake. We will use an interdisciplinary mix of quantitative models and qualitative social science methods to address these issues. The models represent relevant aspects of the Earth system from farm to global scales, including the land, soils, plants, and atmosphere. A key aim is to make a comprehensive (termed 'consequential') life cycle assessment of the effect of the chosen technologies on the carbon cycle, working from the scale of supply chains to particular power plants, to the UK national scale, to the whole Earth system. We aim to go beyond this and also consider the wider effects and trade-offs of the technologies on societies and policy, the climate system, land-use, and ecosystem services. These include impacts on the release of other greenhouse gases, physical effects on the climate system (for example changing the reflectivity of the land surface to sunlight), effects on the water cycle and water quality, on biodiversity, and on the recreational value of landscapes. Working together with the quantitative analysis we will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the societal, policy and governance-related uncertainties, implications and bottlenecks associated with the real world implementation of the project's two chosen GGR methods. This draws on state-of-the-art social science approaches developed by the research team for the review and analysis of how members of the public and stakeholders perceive and respond to emerging technologies, including those for CO2 removal. The consortium team will meet every six months to exchange ideas and learn from each other. At the end of the project we will present our most important findings to policy makers so they can better understand how realistic it is to depend on these methods.