UN, 24 Sep­tem­ber 2021 — In a joint state­ment, the Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­taries of the Unit­ed Na­tions Re­gion­al Com­mis­sions have called for en­hanced re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion to de­vel­op na­ture-based and tech­no­log­i­cal so­lu­tions for cap­tur­ing CO2 emis­sions from the at­mos­phere and en­sur­ing its long-term stor­age.

This week’s High-lev­el Di­a­logue on En­er­gy will be the first glob­al gath­er­ing on en­er­gy man­dat­ed by the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly since 1981. It gives all mem­ber states an op­por­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate their com­mit­ments and ac­tions to achieve clean and af­ford­able en­er­gy for all by 2030 and net-ze­ro car­bon emis­sions by 2050.

 Time is run­ning out to avert a cli­mate emer­gency. Na­tions around the world are fail­ing to live up to their ob­jec­tives and com­mit­ments on sus­tain­able en­er­gy. The re­cent In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) re­port stat­ed that cli­mate change is “wide­spread, rapid, and in­ten­si­fy­ing”. The UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res called it “code red for hu­man­i­ty”.

First of all, we must pro­tect our pre­cious car­bon sinks, which in­clude forests, oceans and wet­lands. Sec­ond, car­bon diox­ide re­moval is es­sen­tial if the world is to achieve its uni­ver­sal­ly agreed sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment goals. Car­bon diox­ide re­moval in­cludes na­ture-based ap­proach­es such as re­for­esta­tion and tech­nol­o­gy-based ap­proach­es such as cap­ture of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions from pow­er plants for un­der­ground stor­age or re-use.

All coun­tries should set clear de­car­boniza­tion tar­gets. In ad­di­tion, gov­ern­ments and politi­cians must be em­pow­ered to sup­port am­bi­tious and im­me­di­ate car­bon re­moval tar­gets.

De­vel­oped coun­tries should put a fair price on the car­bon stocks held as glob­al goods in rain­forests and peat­lands, in­clud­ing the Ama­zon and Con­go Basin, man­grove and coral reefs ecosys­tems and ocean, and sup­port ef­forts to in­crease the ca­pac­i­ty of those car­bon sinks which are at risk of be­com­ing car­bon sources with in­creas­ing land degra­da­tion dri­ven by cli­mate change.

While coun­tries must con­tin­ue to in­crease am­bi­tion un­der the Paris Agree­ment to cut emis­sions, da­ta show that fos­sil fu­els will in some ways re­main part of the en­er­gy mix in many coun­tries for years to come. Some in­dus­tries such as ce­ment, steel and iron pro­duc­tion, and trans­port can­not be eas­i­ly de­car­bonized. Na­tions need to in­sti­tute fa­vor­able con­di­tions for in­vest­ment in car­bon diox­ide re­moval and de­vel­op the need­ed le­gal, fi­nan­cial and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works in col­lab­o­ra­tion with in­fra­struc­ture and bank­ing in­sti­tu­tions.

In­dus­tri­al­ized na­tions should retro­fit ex­ist­ing in­fra­struc­ture now. In coastal re­gions, na­ture-based so­lu­tions such as man­grove forests can be in­creased to sup­port car­bon diox­ide net emis­sions tar­gets and to al­le­vi­ate the ef­fects of ex­treme weath­er events. Patent waivers on next-gen­er­a­tion cli­mate tech­nolo­gies could fa­cil­i­tate in­vest­ment in mod­ern­iz­ing glob­al en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture.

Car­bon diox­ide re­moval is not con­sid­ered uni­ver­sal­ly as a vi­able ap­proach to cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion.  The UN Re­gion­al Com­mis­sions can play an in­stru­men­tal role in con­ven­ing stake­hold­ers to ad­dress ex­ist­ing gaps in knowl­edge and gov­er­nance in the con­text of re­gion­al and na­tion­al speci­fici­ties and ad­dress the re­gion-spe­cif­ic im­pli­ca­tions and trade-offs of glob­al ac­tion on car­bon diox­ide re­moval. Shar­ing best prac­tices among na­tions with re­spect to car­bon diox­ide re­moval im­proves the op­por­tu­ni­ty to build in­clu­sive sus­tain­able liveli­hoods.

In de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, car­bon diox­ide re­moval ac­tiv­i­ties, whether na­ture based or tech­no­log­i­cal, should al­so fea­ture as part of the ef­fort to pro­vide sus­tain­able liveli­hoods that can ac­cel­er­ate the at­tain­ment of the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals.

A cir­cu­lar econ­o­my ap­proach to­wards car­bon needs to be em­braced by so­ci­eties to be able to achieve car­bon neu­tral­i­ty by 2050 and net-ze­ro GHG emis­sions by 2060-2070 to keep the glob­al warm­ing with­in 1.5 ℃.  Hav­ing a sound un­der­stand­ing of the po­ten­tial con­tri­bu­tions of nat­ur­al and tech­no­log­i­cal car­bon diox­ide re­moval would un­der­pin the call for a rad­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion of pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion pat­terns. In our every­day lives, the sys­temic changes re­quired will see high per­for­mance build­ings that re-use car­bon diox­ide be­com­ing com­mon­place along­side stronger com­mit­ments on methane man­age­ment and so­cio-en­vi­ron­men­tal-eco­nom­ic con­tracts in re­source man­age­ment. These ac­tions will in­te­grate qual­i­ty of life as­pi­ra­tions with en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship to de­liv­er cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion.

En­hanc­ing gov­er­nance of car­bon diox­ide re­moval could pro­vide an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty to fo­cus and align re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ef­forts to at­tain glob­al cir­cu­lar car­bon econ­o­my. By work­ing to­geth­er, car­bon diox­ide re­moval has the po­ten­tial to be­come a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of vi­able cli­mate pol­i­cy op­tions for re­gions now and in the decades to come.

The Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­taries of the Unit­ed Na­tions Re­gion­al Com­mis­sions are:

●   Ol­ga Al­gayero­va, Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of the UN Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Eu­rope (UN­ECE)

●   Armi­da Sal­si­ah Al­ishah­bana, Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of the UN Eco­nom­ic and So­cial Com­mis­sion for Asia and the Pa­cif­ic (UN­ESCAP)

●   Ali­cia Bárce­na, Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of the UN Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (UN­ECLAC)

●   Ro­la Dashti, Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of the UN Eco­nom­ic and So­cial Com­mis­sions for West­ern Asia (UN­ESCWA)

●   Ve­ra Song­we, Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of the UN Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Africa (UN­ECA)

A vir­tu­al di­a­logue on “Chal­lenges and Op­por­tu­ni­ties for Har­ness­ing Cli­mate & SDG Syn­er­gies: the role of car­bon diox­ide re­moval” was broad­cast as an of­fi­cial side-event to the High-Lev­el Di­a­logue on En­er­gy on 24 Sep­tem­ber at 07:00-08:15 EST.

This event was or­ga­nized by the Unit­ed Na­tions Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Eu­rope (UN­ECE), in co­op­er­a­tion with Carnegie Cli­mate Gov­er­nance Ini­tia­tive (C2G), fel­low Unit­ed Na­tions’ Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sions and the In­ter­na­tion­al Fo­rum on En­er­gy for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment.