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For limiting global warming to well below 2°C is not enough to rapidly reduce GHG emissions we also need to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Given that the broader innovation literature consistently finds long time periods involved in scaling up and deploying novel technologies, there is an urgency to developing Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies that is largely unappreciated. While CDR policymaking is still in its infancy, incentivizing, coordinating and regulating CDR will be critical. All CDR methods need strict monitoring for durable, additional removals. While it is critical to learn from the existing evidence on CDR policy and governance, there is no overview of this dispersed body of literature right now. IPCC and other science assessments have therefore treated the subject very selectively. This work addresses this lack of overview and systematically maps the literature assessing policy and governance dimensions of CDR.
Systematic mapping provides a comprehensive view of a research field by analyzing the state of evidence, i.e. how much research is available at any point in time on which topics and geographies studied by whom, when and where. We use an AI-enhanced approach to systematic mapping trimming down an initial set of about 30,000 documents on CDR to a set of about 700 that deal with governance and policy issues.
Our findings show sharply growing attention to CDR policies and governance issues over time, but with limited coverage of the Global South. Long established conventional CDR methods such as afforestation dominate the literature with little coverage of many novel CDR methods, such as biochar or direct air carbon capture and storage. We observe a shift from an initial discussion on CDR in international agreements towards the planning and implementation phase of national and sub-national policies.