CANDELARIA BERGERO

The greenhouse gas emissions caused by our energy system threaten a sustainable future. To overcome this threat, we need to transition towards cleaner energy forms. We have to change nearly everything around us: from the way we heat our homes, to the ways we power our planes and produce our steel. My research focuses on how we can achieve this transition and on the environmental justice implications for people like you and me.

My passion is to establish a symbiotic relationship with our planet and with one another.

Diverse carbon dioxide removal approaches could reduce impacts on the energy-water-land system

2023

Photo by Tatiana Zhukova on Unsplash

Nature climate change

Jay Fuhrman, Candelaria Bergero, Maridee Weber, Seth Monteith, Frances M. Wang, Andres F. Clarens, Scott C. Doney, William Skobe, Haewon McJeon

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01604-9

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a critical tool in all plans to limit warming to below 1.5 °C, but only a few CDR pathways have been incorporated into integrated assessment models that international climate policy deliberations rely on. A more diverse set of CDR approaches could have important benefits and costs for energy–water–land systems. Here we use an integrated assessment model to assess a complete suite of CDR approaches including bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, afforestation, direct air capture with carbon storage, enhanced weathering, biochar and direct ocean capture with carbon storage. CDR provided by each approach spans three orders of magnitude, with deployment and associated impacts varying between regions. Total removals reach approximately 10 GtCO₂ yr⁻¹ globally, largely to offset residual CO₂ and non-CO₂ emissions, which remain costly to avoid even under scenarios specifically designed to reduce them.

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