As the urgency to address climate change grows, advocacy groups will be asked to weigh in on what actions they support to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations. A meeting in Nairobi provided an opportunity for civil society organizations to explore their positions on carbon dioxide removal.
Carbon Dioxide Removal: Exploring a Rapidly Evolving IssueOrganizations from around the world learn about and explore their positions on carbon dioxide removal“We are in a climate emergency!” This was a common refrain heard at a meeting on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) I facilitated in July 2019 in Nairobi. The meeting was convened by the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G), and organized with support of Steering Committee members from the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University, the African Climate Policy Centre, and the Climate Action Network (CAN) International.During the meeting participants explored four possible CDR approaches, including sustainable agriculture and soil carbon, restoration of degraded lands and protection of primary forests, bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS). The meeting was an opportunity for civil society participants, primarily from the global south, to learn, ask questions of experts and each other, and exchange views, concerns, and hopes. The meeting was structured to explore this rapidly evolving issue and empower civil society organizations to engage in policy discussions about CDR at the national and global level.At the conclusion of the meeting, participants stressed the importance of events such as this one, which provide a space for people to explore their own positions on climate policy issues. One participant said, “We shouldn’t let anyone decide for us how to approach CDR and other proposed climate solutions, and we shouldn’t expect anyone to [decide for us] either.”In recent months world leaders came together at the UN to discuss the climate crisis, students took to the streets to urge their leaders to act, and extreme fires burned across California and Australia. At the UN Climate Change Conference CoP25 that started this week and in the years ahead, policy makers and advocacy groups will need to make decisions about what mix of actions they support to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to avoid the growing catastrophic impacts of climate change. We will need more events like the Nairobi meeting to provide these groups with the latest information and space to explore their positions to help them develop policies and strategies that take account of their own context and align with their values and beliefs.Maya Breitburg-Smith Senior Mediator, RESOLVE December 4, 2019
At RESOLVE, we’re here to tackle the toughest global challenges. The ones nobody else wants to touch. Where people are in conflict and planet problems are stuck. We’re here to unstick them. It’s not easy. It takes grit and ingenuity. And finding and working with the right partners. But we’re not called RESOLVE for nothing.
