With the earth emitting 37 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, there is increasing scientific and political attention to technologies and practices that might help address climate change. The Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal, a research center in the School of International Service, aims to develop ways of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—but in ways that are responsible, democratic, just, and equitable and help shape this growing sector for the better.

We sat down with Sara Nawaz, Director of Research at the Institute, to learn more about what “carbon removal” is and how carbon removal technologies and policies can be designed with potentially impacted communities in mind.

What is carbon removal, and why is it important?

The growing consensus, such as at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and elsewhere, is that unfortunately, it will not be enough for our global society to simply reduce emissions. We’re actually going to have to find ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Some of the ways of doing this that are already well understood, such as restoring ecosystems, won’t get us to the scale needed to meet climate targets. Researchers, scientists, governments, companies, philanthropies, and others have been increasingly paying attention to this topic and are looking to develop methods for creating removals that are actually scalable. And by scalable, I mean able to get to the level of something like 10 gigatons per year of removals by 2050. To give that some context, our current annual carbon dioxide emissions globally are about 35-40 gigatons per year. So, we’re talking about an immense scalar challenge here.

I often use a bucket analogy: a bucket overflowing, or near to overflowing, with water is the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. There are three options: 1) adaptation: learning to live with water spilling out of the bucket; 2) reduction: stop adding water as quickly to the bucket; or 3) removal: draining the bucket, which is what we’re trying to do with carbon removal.

Crucially, there is a difference between carbon removal from the atmosphere and carbon capture, where you are burning fossil fuels and capturing part of those emissions. Carbon removal is not that—instead, it involves pulling carbon directly from the atmosphere. It’s also key that the carbon that is removed is stored for a long time, ideally hundreds to thousands of years.

Why the focus on “responsible” carbon removal? What does that mean in practice?

There is a growing community of people thinking about how we do carbon removal, and our role at the Institute is to think about not only how to do carbon removal but also how to do it well within the broader context in which it’s happening. How do we set up programs, research, and policy for carbon removal in a way that doesn’t exacerbate the climate problem? We don’t want carbon removal to cause an increase in emissions elsewhere. So, we want to think carefully about what kinds of policies and frameworks ensure that doing carbon removal doesn’t have that kind of effect—what we often call a ‘moral hazard’ or ‘mitigation deterrence’ effect.

We also don’t want it to be good just for the climate, but also for people, especially historically oppressed groups. We released a report earlier this year and just published a paper mapping how carbon removal could be part of a just transition and a more progressive political and economic future. Much of the current conversation on carbon removal assumes that it will occur in a very private sector-led, market-oriented way, even though if we look at existing carbon markets or the legacy of environmental injustice from other industrial developments, we quickly see that these approaches can have many harmful impacts. A lot of what we mean by ‘responsible’ carbon removal at the Institute is ensuring that local communities, Indigenous communities, and the general public have a meaningful say in what this growing sector looks like. Through community and public engagement, we want to make sure that it’s not just a bunch of elites and researchers making decisions.

What groups and communities are you currently working with in your efforts to ensure carbon removal policies can be designed in just and equitable ways?

Right now, a lot of my research focuses on marine-based approaches—meaning what we do in the oceans or on coastlines to try to remove carbon and store it durably. I’m focusing a lot on coastal communities in the Pacific Northwest. With new and complex issues like this, you can’t just ask people what they think about it. You need to have a full conversation where you help them learn about the complicated issue and let them dialogue and ask questions. A lot of times developers or others will do one-sided “outreach” rather than have a full learning experience and deliberation with communities.

We’re also just starting some work with Tribal communities, looking at how Tribes and Indigenous communities think about this subject. It’s essential that Indigenous communities can participate in decision making on this subject, and our hope is to support some of these early conversations on carbon removal with Tribes.

What have you found are the best ways to involve the public and particular communities in these processes?

My research uses in-person “deliberative” workshops where we structure conversations and have interactive exercises and even games to get folks to learn about carbon removal, reflect on it, and discuss the topic with their peers. Sometimes it’s with the public, but we also work with groups that would be particularly interested in or impacted by carbon removal (like fisheries or environmental groups) and local or municipal governments. I also do more quantitative survey work with in-depth surveys to introduce people to the topic and collect data on their initial thinking.

Another focus in my work is thinking more broadly about what it means to do engagement well. Are there things we can do from a policy or sector perspective that improve engagement or make it more comprehensive or less biased? The status quo is that developers with a strong agenda tend to lead engagement with communities—but is there perhaps a better way to do things, such as a central engagement body that can ensure more strategic and unbiased engagement? We want to spell out a vision for what good engagement looks like for the sector.

In general, we are, and want to be, an unbiased resource! Our agenda is that carbon removal needs to happen. We don’t have a particular method or project we’re pushing and firmly believe in historically oppressed communities’ right to refusal. We want to be a resource for different groups that are assessing and making decisions on how they want to think about this topic.

What is on the horizon for your work and the work of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal?

We recently held our fourth annual Carbon Dioxide Removal Law & Policy Conference on November 18. It was held online with the theme, "The Emerging Regulatory Terrain for CDR". 

The Institute has received funding from the National Science Foundation’s Geosciences Program via American University’s Translating Research into Action Center to collaborate with partners to conduct Tribal outreach and engagement on carbon removal and to develop a decision support toolkit produced with and for Tribal partners.

We were also very pleased to see that some important legislation was voted out of the Massachusetts Legislature (and likely to be signed into law by the Governor). This is legislation that I had supported via expert testimony and roundtable meetings and supports funds for CDR research and projects.

Finally, we are building out more work on public/community ownership models for the sector, which is also a big part of doing carbon removal responsibly. As I mentioned earlier, the status quo is carbon removal as a private-sector process (i.e., via carbon offsets or carbon credits), but we want to look at other ways of thinking about governance and ownership that don’t center on profit, whether publicly funded or community-owned.