Carbon management - effective climate protection or greenwashing on a large scale?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishes a report on the development of climate change every five to seven years. A central aspect of these reports is the so-called CO2 budget. In simple terms, this describes the amount of CO2 that can still be emitted without falling short of specified climate targets, such as the 1.5° target. This idea of breaking down abstract climate targets into a quantitatively describable budget opens an interesting perspective on climate targets. Instead of setting purely political targets for climate protection without a scientific basis, the global CO2 budget can be broken down into national or sectoral budgets to determine paths towards climate neutrality. This is exactly where carbon management comes in. Even if the way in which the budget is set differs from the monetary budget, both types of budgets can be managed. When it comes to putting this idea into practice, carbon management comes into play. 

What is carbon management? 

The basic idea of carbon management describes the strategic approach of systematically reducing CO2 emissions. Carbon management includes all measures that remove CO2 from the atmosphere or ensure that less CO2 is added to it. In principle, carbon management can be implemented on various scales and can be applied to entire countries as well as individual companies.  

Carbon management consists of three consecutive steps:  

1. Current emissions must be recorded. It is not only important to determine the amount of CO2 that is emitted as precisely as possible, but also at which point in the process chain the CO2 is emitted and what exactly is the cause of the emitted CO2.

2. Measures and strategies can then be developed to reduce CO2 emissions.

3. Finally, the measures implemented must be evaluated. Regular reports that transparently show progress on the path to climate neutrality should be used for this purpose. 

If we take a closer look at the pool of measures that carbon management entails, these can be divided into three categories:  

• Direct avoidance of CO2 

• CO2 capture 

• CO2 compensation.  

The most obvious option is probably the direct avoidance of CO2 emissions through the reorganisation of processes. Specific measures can vary across a broad spectrum and range from simple energy efficiency measures to a complete change in technology. What all these individual measures share in common is that, ultimately, less CO2 is emitted from the chimneys, this fact distinguishes them from measures in the other two categories.  
 
The second block of measures is usually summarised under the keyword ‘Carbon capture’. In addition to the often cited ‘Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage’ or CCUS technology (CCUS for short), this also refers to ‘Direct Air Carbon Capture’ or DACC technology (DACC for short). Even though both technologies aim to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, their approach differs in terms of where this should take place. While CCUS reduces the amount of CO2 in exhaust gases, i.e. directly at the source, DACC aims to recapture CO2 that has already been released into the atmosphere.  
 
The third category is the offsetting of own emissions, for example through so-called ‘carbon credits’. This involves offsetting one's own CO2 emissions by saving or avoiding emissions elsewhere, thereby reducing emissions on the balance sheet.  

Looking at these three possible categories of carbon management’ measures, it quickly becomes obvious that only measures for the direct avoidance of CO2 entail systematic changes to CO2-emitting processes. In the other two categories, the problem of CO2 emissions is only shifted in time or geography and offers no solution to the initial problem, for example the use of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, in carbon management, measures in all three categories are treated equally with regard to the reduction of their own CO2 emissions. What initially seems reasonable in theory reveals various pitfalls in practice. 

Carbon management - a broken system? 

To understand what the problem with today's carbon management system is, which applies primarily to companies, the possible initiatives for CO2 reduction must be considered. The most fundamental measures, the conversion of CO2-emitting processes, are often difficult and can be associated with many obstacles of a technical or economic nature. Even when technical solutions are available, companies act mainly according to economic rather than ecological principles. In addition, there can be lock-in effects that delay the implementation of possible measures for a long time or business models such as the extraction of oil and gas that are simply not compatible with climate protection. A combination of these and other reasons often makes it difficult to quickly implement measures that avoid the production of CO2. 

So simply produce CO2 and capture it again later? This could be the obvious but fatal conclusion. If you consider how often CCUS is discussed in the press as a solution for industrial emissions, you might think that it is a well-proven technology that is widely used or at least on the verge of a breakthrough. Only around 0.1% of the global 38 billion tonnes of CO2 that we emit each year is currently prevented from entering the atmosphere by CCUS. Even if the rather ambitious target of one billion tonnes of captured CO2 were to be achieved by 2030, this would amount to just 2.5% of today's emissions. It therefore quickly becomes clear that CCUS is not a technology that has the potential to solve our emissions problem today or in the medium-term future without systematic changes in our economy. Rather, as a supposedly saving deus-ex-machina technology, it has the potential to call into question necessary investments in measures for the direct avoidance of CO2 and to provide people with new ammunition against seemingly too expensive climate protection measures with the good-sounding argument of technological openness.

To date, the use of CCUS has made very little sense, both technically and economically, as their operation is usually uneconomical, and more CO2 can be saved with the necessary energy through direct avoidance measures. CCUS can contribute to climate protection, but it should be used with caution in processes with truly unavoidable emissions, such as lime burning in cement production, and be the final piece of the decarbonisation puzzle.  

‘Then the emissions are simply offset elsewhere with carbon credits. It doesn't matter where the emissions are avoided,' some people will certainly be thinking. The idea of subsequently offsetting CO2 emissions that have already been emitted through reforestation, the protection of primeval forests or the renaturalisation of peatlands, for example, sounds tempting and is an integral part of the sustainability strategy of many companies such as Shell and BP. Companies can buy carbon credits for this purpose. Carbon credits are compensation certificates that are intended to prove that one tonne of CO2 has been absorbed from the atmosphere and therefore entitle the company to emit one tonne of CO2 without harming the climate. However, if you take a closer look at the business of carbon credits, the facade of CO2 compensation crumbles alarmingly. In the past, many different investigations have repeatedly revealed methodologically non-transparent, incomprehensible or simply poor certification mechanisms in many projects. 

For example, according to a Guardian article from last year, more than 90% of the carbon credits from the world's largest certifier that are linked to rainforest protection are completely worthless and are therefore more of a driver of the climate crisis than part of the solution. Various experts doubt that it is even possible to reliably determine the annual amount of CO2 that would be bound by individual reforestation or renaturation projects. This research is by no means an isolated case and highlights the systematic problem of CO2 compensation. Nowadays, CO2 compensation certificates often degenerate into a means that companies use to justify further emissions, to shift the focus in climate protection discussions and to present themselves to the public as particularly green or even climate neutral. But is this practice down to individual companies or to carbon management itself? 

Carbon management - a misunderstood instrument? 

Used incorrectly, carbon management degenerates into an instrument that helps companies to engage in greenwashing. With a carbon management strategy, a company can publicise its willingness to become climate neutral. If offsetting certificates and promises of future CO2 capture are cleverly combined, a company can present itself as significantly greener and more climate-conscious than it is without emitting even one gram of CO2 less. Carbon management can hardly serve as a reliable indicator of whether a company has serious ambitions to become climate neutral as quickly as possible. Rather, the individually implemented strategy always plays a major role. Carbon management should therefore not be seen as a fundamental seal of approval for committed climate protection, but merely provides companies with tools whose efficiency, as in the real world, is determined by their correct use. If this situation is to be changed, much tighter guidelines must be set for the possible measures. For example, terms such as ‘unavoidable emissions’ must be defined as narrowly and specifically as possible. Without these adjustments, promises of future capture technologies and tales of carbon offsetting can be further obstacles on the road to climate neutrality.