{"id":1497163,"date":"2024-02-13T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=629768"},"modified":"2024-02-13T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T09:30:00","slug":"taylor-swifts-super-bowl-flight-shows-whats-wrong-with-carbon-removal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/02\/13\/taylor-swifts-super-bowl-flight-shows-whats-wrong-with-carbon-removal\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift\u2019s Super Bowl flight shows what\u2019s wrong with carbon removal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To get to the Super Bowl on time, Taylor Swift took a private jet from Tokyo to Los Angeles and then hustled to Las Vegas. The carbon removal company Spiritus estimated that her journey of roughly 5,500 miles produced about 40 tons of carbon dioxide<\/a> \u2014 about what is generated by charging nearly 5 million cell phones. But don\u2019t worry, the company assured her critics: It would take those emissions right back out of the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpiritus wants to help Taylor and her Swifties \u2018Breathe<\/a>\u2019 without any CO2 \u2018Bad Blood<\/a>,\u2019\u201d it said in a pun-laden pitch to reporters. \u201cIt\u2019s a touchdown for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The startup is among dozens, if not hundreds, of businesses trying to permanently remove climate-warming gases from the atmosphere. Its approach involves drawing carbon directly from the air and burying it, but others sink it in the ocean. Last week, Graphyte, a venture backed by Bill Gates, began compacting sawdust and other woody waste that are rich in carbon into bricks <\/a>that it will bury deep underground. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spiritus says \u201csponsoring carbon offsets is a step toward environmental responsibility, not an endorsement of luxury flights\u201d and added that \u201ccelebrities are going to take private jets regardless of what Spiritus does.\u201d Even before the company stepped in, Swift reportedly planned to purchase offsets that more than covered her travel. But some climate experts say moves like Spiritus\u2019 illustrate the dangerous direction the rapidly growing carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, industry is headed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe worry is that carbon removal will be something we do so that business-as-usual can continue,\u201d said Sara Nawaz, director of research at American University’s Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy. \u201cWe need a really big conversation reframe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says carbon removal will be \u201crequired<\/a>\u201d to meet climate targets, and the United States Department of Energy has a goal of bringing the cost down to $100 per ton<\/a> (a price point Spiritus claims it wants to deliver as well<\/a>). What concerns Nawaz is the outsize role that private companies are currently playing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s very market-oriented: doing carbon removals for profit,\u201d Nawaz said. That reliance on the market, she elaborated, won\u2019t necessarily lead to the just, equitable, and scalable outcomes that she hopes CDR can achieve. \u201cWe need to take a step back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nawaz co-wrote a report released today titled \u201cAgenda for a Progressive Political Economy of Carbon Removal.<\/a>\u201d In it, she and her co-authors lay out a vision for carbon removal that shifts away from market-centric approaches to ones that are government-, community-, and worker-led.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat they suggest is quite radical,\u201d said Lauren Gifford, associate director of the Soil Carbon Solutions Center at Colorado State University who was not involved in the research. She supports the direction the authors advocate, adding, \u201cThey actually give us a roadmap on how to get there, and that in itself is progressive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nawaz compared carbon removal\u2019s current trajectory to the bumpy path that carbon offsets has followed. That industry, in which organizations sell credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions, has been plagued by misleading claims<\/a> and perverse incentives<\/a>. It has also raised environmental justice concerns where offsets are disproportionately impacting frontline communities and developing nations. For example, Blue Carbon, a company backed by the United Arab Emirates, has been buying enormous swaths of land<\/a> in Africa to fuel its offsets program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don’t want to do that again with carbon removal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philanthropy is one possible alternative to corporate carbon removal. The report cites a nonprofit organization called Terraset<\/a> that puts tax-deductible donations toward CDR projects (including Spiritus\u2019). But, Nawaz says, that approach won\u2019t grow quickly or sustainably enough to remove the many gigatons of emissions needed to meaningfully address climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat’s not a scalable approach,\u201d she said. \u201cWe’re going to need so much more money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report argues that communities and governments must play a central role in the industry. Nawaz cites community-driven carbon removal efforts out West, such as the 4 Corners Carbon Coalition<\/a>, as examples<\/a> of what might be possible on the local level. Nationally, she points to Germany\u2019s transition away from coal<\/a> as a way that governments can not only fund but fundamentally drive clean energy policy that puts workers at the fore.<\/p>\n\n\n

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To be sure, the United States is investing in carbon removal. The bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act included billions of dollars for technology such as regional direct air capture hubs. But the legislation mostly positions the government as a funder or purchaser of carbon removal initiatives rather than a practitioner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s, frankly, a pretty disappointing way it’s evolving,\u201d said Nawaz, noting, for instance, that Occidental Petroleum is among those receiving federal funding for carbon removal<\/a>. She would like to see the government take a more hands-on role. \u201cNot just government procurement of carbon removal. But actually government-led research and early-stage implementation of carbon removal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gifford agrees that there are dangers in the industry relying too much on the private sector. \u201cThere’s something really scary about putting the climate crisis in the hands of wealthy tech founders,\u201d she said. But companies have also been at the forefront of advancing the field as well. \u201cThe climate crisis is one of these things that’s all-hands-on-deck.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those in the private sector say their efforts are critical to ensuring that carbon removal technology is developed and deployed as quickly as possible. \u201cOur coalition represents innovators,\u201d said Ben Rubin, the executive director of the Carbon Business Council, a nonprofit trade association representing more than 100 carbon management companies. \u201dThere won’t necessarily be one silver bullet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere’s a long history of public-private partnerships ushering in some of the world’s latest and greatest innovations,\u201d added Dana Jacobs, the chief of staff for the Carbon Removal Alliance, which similarly represents startups in this space. \u201cWe think carbon removal won’t be any different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nawaz and her colleagues want to shake that paradigm before it\u2019s too deeply entrenched. The alternative could be continued unjust outcomes for marginalized people and limited progress on luxury emissions, such as Swift\u2019s flight to the Super Bowl. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea is that carbon removal is a public good,\u201d she said. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t have to rely on just the private sector to provide it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Grist<\/a> with the headline Taylor Swift’s Super Bowl flight shows what’s wrong with carbon removal<\/a> on Feb 13, 2024.<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Grist<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A “quite radical” report suggests governments and communities, not the private sector, should be leading the carbon removal industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28283,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500284,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497163\/revisions\/1500284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}