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Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a critical component of strategies to limit global warming to well below 2°C. Development and deployment of CDR methods will be crucial in the next decades as CDR needs to be scaled to several gigatonnes by mid-century. How CDR is perceived will play a vital role for this process, as it can support, hinder and inform large-scale implementation. Here, we conduct a first systematic review of the literature on perceptions, attitudes and opinions on CDR. We extend previous reviews by (1) comprehensively searching the literature using a transparent and reproducible study selection strategy enhanced with machine-learning, (2) systematically assessing the available evidence using a mixed-methods approach with meta-analysis and qualitative synthesis, and (3) also including perceptions of stakeholder groups such as CDR adopters or experts, who are critical for technology scale-up.
We find that more than half of the identified 165 articles on CDR perceptions focuses on particular stakeholder groups, while the other half is on general populations – often using surveys on nationally representative samples. The literature is highly concentrated on high-income countries. Quantitative studies find low levels of public awareness on CDR and investigate a variety of outcomes, with the most frequent being acceptance and support for CDR. These perceptions are influenced by perceived advantages and risks of technologies, subjective knowledge and trust in governance. A meta-analysis provides estimates of average effects of these factors on support. Our synthesis of qualitative studies further shows how context dependent the influence of factors are. This talk will focus on the mixed-methods approach applied in our review as part of the session “Qualitative evidence synthesis: contemporary approaches in climate policy research”.