Carbon capture only way to stay below 1.5 degrees: James Shaw

“If you want to hold global temperatures to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, you have to ask yourself, why is it above that now?” Shaw said.

 

“And the reason is because concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are about 420 parts per million. And in the pre-industrial era, they were sitting at around 260 parts per million.

 

“So there has been a 160 parts per million increase in the amount of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. 

 

“The last time there was this much C02 in the atmosphere there were palm trees growing in Antarctica, and the sea levels were six meters higher. 

 

“And there’s about a 40-year time lag between when the emissions are going to go up into the atmosphere and when that kind of effect occurs and in the warming.  

 

“Essentially, the warming that we’re experiencing now is based on 1970s numbers – which was close to about 360, I think, from memory. 

Net zero nowhere near adequate

 

“So, what that means is that net zero is nowhere adequate. All that says is that we’re going to maintain the levels of concentration the atmosphere at 420. 

 

“You’ve actually got to aim to get those concentrations back down to about 260 parts per million.”

 

Shaw said the New Zealand start-ups were looking at capturing emissions from industry and then storing them permanently underground.

 

But that was an economic and technological decision based on the fact that the cost of capturing C02 from the atmosphere is currently prohibitively high.

 

Iceland has a carbon capture project which permanently stores C02 by injecting it into basalt rock at a depth of 1000 metres.

 

Shaw said the carbon capture from industry wouldn’t be eligible for credits under the ETS but the emitting industries could avoiding having to pay for those emissions.

 

He said that, having built a business out of storing carbon from industry, the start-ups could move onto actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere and earning credits for that.  

 

Carbon capture is already referenced in legislation, but it needs updating and a regulatory system needs to be developed, Shaw said.  

The National Party currently has a member’s bill in the ballot that “seeks to encourage and further allow carbon abatement and sequestration to occur by removing the requirement that entities must be an emitter of carbon to receive New Zealand units for embedding a substance that would otherwise result in emissions into a product or for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide.”