Reaching Net Zero in the UK: Greenhouse Gas Removal risks and opportunities

If we’re going to reach the UK Government’s net-zero target by 2050, we need to interrogate the risks and opportunities across the Greenhouse Gas Removal Sector. With the rapid growth expected, how can we ensure best practice from all the key players?

On Thursday, 22 September 2022, leaders of the UK’s Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) sector came together at Lloyd’s of London to participate in a half-day roundtable discussion organised by Kita, the CO2RE Greenhouse Gas Removal Hub and Lloyd’s, with the help of our sponsors, Clyde & Co and Chaucer.

We convened this roundtable in response to our shared objective to increase and strengthen the dialogues between the various stakeholders that make up the GGR sector. Given that in the UK alone, 75-81 MtCO2 of engineered removals are likely to be needed per year to cost-effectively reach the government’s net-zero target by 2050, we believed it was timely and necessary to facilitate a collaborative setting where GGR industry players, academics and government advisors could come together to identify the key market transition risks, uncertainties and possible guardrails required for the monumental scaling of this still-nascent industry, both within the UK and around the world.

With this goal in mind, we asked the roundtable participants to identify the key issues affecting the development of the GGR sector, and discuss the ways in which the three market ‘pillars’ are likely to unfold (or ‘develop’) and interact with each other — namely, the voluntary carbon market, the government-supported market and the yet-to-be-implemented regulated/compliance market.

It was a fascinating discussion. Among the many salient issues raised were the speed at which regulation could be set, the separation of nature-based and technological removal solutions, the introduction of GGR into the compliance market, the risk of carbon export bans, the role of institutional investors, whether carbon measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) providers should be regulated and the future of the voluntary carbon market. As possible guardrails against some of these risks, the participants mentioned the potential role of blockchain to enhance the tracking and tracing of carbon credits, of increased corporate buyer scrutiny and of the insurance industry to improve MRV reliability and project performance.

With many thanks to our excellent roundtable chair, Justin Macinante (the CO2RE Hub) and dedicated participants, Antti Vihavainen (Puro.earth), Kirsty Schneeberger (Climate Impact Partners), James Elliott (Green Alliance), Adam Whitmore (Bellona), Catriona Reynolds (Drax), Chris Manson-Whitton (Progressive Energy), Jim Mann (UN-DO / Future Forest Co.), Laura Hurley (BEIS), Annabel Dale (BEIS), Henry Dieudonné-Demaria (BEIS) and Helen Bray (Carbon Engineering).

And special thanks to all those GGR enthusiasts who attended the post-roundtable networking drinks that evening!