Cumulative carbon & the ethical case for mandatory CCS Professor Myles Allen from University of Oxford presenting the Opening Keynote of the UK CCS Research Centre's Biannual Meeting - CCS in the Bigger Picture - held in Cambridge 2-3 April 2014

1. Cumulative carbon and the ethical case for
mandatory CCS
Myles Allen
Environmental ChangeInstitute &
Oxford Martin Programme on Resource Stewardship
School of Geography and the Environment & Department of Physics
University of Oxford
myles.allen@ouce.ox.ac.uk

2. “Rational,” “robust” & “anti-fragile” climate
policies
 “Rational” policies aim to minimise net probability-
weighted harm due to impacts and mitigation.
– Nordhaus, Tol etc.
 “Robust” policies aim to minimise probability of
unacceptable outcomes (dangerous climate change).
– Stern, Weitzman etc.
 Both depend critically on controversial estimates of
the “fat high tail” of responses & damages.
 “Anti-fragile” policies aim to exploit uncertainty
rather than simply being proofed against it.

3. Why we need anti-fragile climate policy
 Uncertainty is not going
away.
 We need climate
policies that are helped
by uncertainty, not just
robust to uncertainty.

4. Why we need anti-fragile climate policy
 Uncertainty is not going
away.
 We need climate
policies that are helped
by uncertainty, not just
robust to uncertainty.

5. Aims of this talk
 Why current climate policies are fragile, placing
unbearable pressures on climate science.
 What we are looking for in anti-fragile climate policy.
 An anti-fragile policy that won’t work: an adaptive
carbon tax.
 Why carbon taxes, adaptive or not, don’t promote the
measures required to prevent DAIC.
 An anti-fragile policy that could work: mandatory
sequestration.

6. McKitrick’s proposal: a carbon tax tied to global
tropospheric temperature
 Neat idea, but how do you set the coefficient?
 McKitrick’s latest: $30 per degree of warming + $10?
Under IPCC projected warming “the tax could reach
$200 per tonne of CO2 by 2100.”
 So at 2oC above pre-industrial, tax would be c. $40?
 Even $200/tCO2 is not enough to discourage all uses
of fossil fuels.

7. Begin with “the most important finding” of the
2013 IPCC WG1 Scientific Assessment
Total anthropogenic warming
CO2-induced warming

8. Cumulative emissions determine peak warming
Focus of climate policy

9. What actually
matters
Cumulative emissions determine peak warming
Not the rate of emissions in 2020

10. Initial reaction: cumulative carbon budgets “will
play no part” in UNFCCC negotiations
Who is in charge here?

11. The reason cumulative budgets are “unhelpful”:
Cumulative fossil carbon emissions 1751-2006
© CarbonQuiltwww.youtube.com/watch?v=MEMse22h8c8

12. Unconventional reserves
Cumulative emissions & fossil carbon reserves
Past emissions, fossil and land-use changeEstimated conventional reserves

13. Must be sequestered or recaptured to meet 2oC goal
Cumulative emissions & fossil carbon reserves

14. The real goal of climate policy: to get from A to B
A
B

15. Climate Mitigation with No New Taxes:
SAFE carbon
 Sequestered Adequate Fraction of Extracted (SAFE)
carbon: carbon from a supply that ensures we never
exceed the atmospheric capacity.
 So, what is an “Adequate Fraction”?
S = Net carbon sequestered / carbon extracted
C(t)= Cumulativeemissions since policy is adopted
C0 = Atmospheric capacity at the time policyis adopted
 If all carbon sources were SAFE, we would never
exceed the atmospheric capacity.

16. The real goal of climate policy: to get from A to B
A
B

17. Suppose the fossil fuel industry decides to
defend its share of world energy supply

18. But paying for all that sequestration implies a
carbon price, passed on to consumers

19. So they might consume less, making the carbon
price lower – but without compromising policy

20. Comparing SAFE carbon with a carbon-price-
driven scenario: IEA “BLUE Map”
S=40% in 2050
under IEA BLUE
Map scenario

21. The best that can happen if you rely on a carbon
price: very rapid deployment of CCS post-2040
Shell “Mountains” scenario
!

22. Comparing SAFE carbon with Shell’s “New
Lens” scenarios
1 TtC

23. SAFE carbon could start aiming for an optimistic
(high) total budget without sacrificing credibility

24. Who might introduce mandatory sequestration?
A consumer-nation-led scenario
 “Europe” recognises
– The need for CCS
– The fact that a carbon price won’t deliver it
– The political unsustainabilityof tax- or rate-payer-funded
CCS projectsin times of high fossil fuel margins.
 “Europe” mandates all fossil fuel suppliers to
sequester a steadily increasing fraction of the
carbon they supply = “SAFE carbon”.
 “Europe” demands all imported goods are certified
manufactured with SAFE carbon.
 Problem: Europe really has to care about climate
change (“pure” climate policy: no co-benefits).

25. Who might introduce mandatory sequestration?
A producer-nation-led scenario
 The rebranded “Organisation for the Protection of
the Environment and Climate” recognises
– The shale gas revolution is depressing oil and coal prices
– A successful UNFCCC will depressfossil energy demand
– Carbon taxes and ETS’s are eroding their rents
 Agree that all fossil carbon production above a safe
limit must be offset with sequestration.
 Costs of sequestration are nominally borne by
producers, justifying fierce sanctions against non-
participants.
 Short-term impact: increased fossil energy prices.

26. Who owns the “unemittable” carbon?

27. Who might introduce mandatory sequestration?
A consumer-industry-led scenario
 The global airline industry recognises
– Environmental levies are depressing profit margins
– Levies can only get higher if their goal is to reduce demand
– Long-term future requires CCS (no space for bio-fuels)
 Agrees that jet fuel should be made with SAFE
carbon: a steadily increasing fraction of its carbon
content is offset with sequestration.
 Demands exemption from all climate levies, ETS etc.
 Demands competing industries follow suit.
 Could SAFE carbon be ICAO’s “Market-Based
Mechanism”?

28. Unexpected climate champions?

29. Thank you
And thanks to David Frame, Niel
Bowerman, Bob Hahn, Alex Lorenz, Jon
Gibbins & many, many others