Finance and Innovation to couple Negative emissions and sustainable Development

Introduction

The FIND project will develop an innovative framework to assess the feasibility and social desirability of limiting global warming through the diffusion of negative emission technologies. Current global climate action is deeply insufficient to deliver the objectives of the Paris Agreement, and containing global warming to 1.5 °C will likely require the deployment of carbon dioxide removals.

Challenges of Current Technologies

However, the technologies to sequestrate and store carbon from the atmosphere are currently immature, risky, and highly questioned. Understanding the effective diffusion potential of carbon removal methods and their socioeconomic and environmental impacts is pivotal to design future climate action.

Project Goals

The FIND project aims to ensure that negative emission technologies act as an enabler, not a barrier, to long-run sustainable development. It brings together different disciplines – namely:

• Climate science
• Economics
• Innovation studies
• Climate finance
• Integrated assessment
• Agent-based modelling

This interdisciplinary approach creates a coherent and synergic whole.

Key Aspects of Research

FIND is designed to provide breakthrough evidence about two crucial and under-investigated aspects of carbon removal solutions:

1. How their techno-economic paradigms evolve and relate to the broader technological landscape.
2. How immature and uncertain technologies can be financed to provide social value rather than speculative interest.

Methodology

By combining innovation, finance, and political economy into a quantitative theory of carbon removal operationalization unfolding at a global scale, FIND will expand the state-of-the-art in climate-energy-economy modelling and reassess decarbonization pathways.

Policy Evaluation

The project will evaluate climate and non-climate policies to create robust, no-regret policy portfolios supporting a rapid and sustainable path to a net-zero society.

Relevance

FIND will be of high relevance for public policy and civil society, especially considering Europe’s commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 while spurring green and inclusive growth.