Colloquium: Berta Moya

The scientific consensus is clear: to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we must take decisive action to reduce fossil greenhouse gas emissions. However emission reductions alone are no longer sufficient. All scenarios proposed by the IPCC now include the removal of gigatons of carbon from the Earth’s atmosphere to remain within 1.5℃ to 2℃ degrees of warming, which will require global carbon removal to scale up to 10Gt per year by 2050.
Carbon removal projects rely on financing primarily through carbon markets, which have come under scrutiny in the past regarding the disparity between claims and credits sold and the reality of some emission offsetting projects. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a nascent industry, with an opportunity to set ground rules from the onset for robust accountability and transparency and ensure only projects that achieve real climate impacts can participate in carbon markets. This talk will explore the key challenges that exist to ensure high-quality, durable and verifiable carbon removals and which actions, checks and balances and tools can be used to establish trust in CDR projects and enable its scale up with the urgency required to address the climate crisis."