Search Climate Insights Directory

The document outlines expert perspectives on how climate damages exacerbate inequality and identifies three primary equity risks associated with carbon dioxide removal (CDR): moral hazard, the use of removed CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, and negative social or environmental impacts.

The report summarizes a survey of 699 CDR researchers, finding that while experts predict multi-gigaton-scale removal by 2050, they identify market costs and policy gaps as primary barriers. Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) and forest-based methods are expected to provide the largest shares of removal by 2075, with forest-based removal being the most cost-effective. Despite predicting a need for over 12 Gt of CDR to reach net-zero by 2075, respondents project actual removal levels to be significantly lower, suggesting a gap between necessity and expected implementation.

The report finds that while China has significant potential for land-based climate mitigation, efforts have historically focused on energy and industry, with forestry being the only land sector with comprehensive targets. Agriculture, grasslands, and wetlands remain underexploited, hampered by a lack of standardized methodologies and a prioritization of food security over carbon sequestration. The relaunch of the China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) scheme in 2023 offers a potential funding mechanism, though it is currently limited to forestry.

The report argues that global ecological disruption is a critical, underappreciated security threat. It details how the collapse of ecosystem services, biodiversity loss, and environmental crime create systemic risks including pandemics, political instability, and economic harm. The authors advocate for a fundamental reboot of U.S. national security architecture to integrate scientific expertise and prioritize ecological security alongside climate change.

The research synthesizes literature and expert elicitation to quantify drivers of change affecting peatland carbon stocks and highlights the critical gap in current climate modeling frameworks, which largely omit peatland ecosystems.

The report serves as a barometer for UK climate engagement, drawing on a survey of 178 climate communicators and an expert elicitation workshop to establish best practice recommendations and identify consensus and conflict among practitioners.