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Abstract:
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is often characterized as separate from climate change
mitigation. Discussion of CDR governance – despite enjoying growing interest – tends
to overlook how key provisions on mitigation apply. Similarly, many climate policy
processes have ignored CDR. CDR may have been discursively held separate from
‘mitigation’ due to a partial conceptual overlap with ‘geoengineering’. We unpack
how the ‘mitigation of climate change’ – as defined in the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement – includes CDR as defined by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We point to important implications
and opportunities for strengthening governance by enhanced clarity regarding par-
ties’ obligations, principled equitable distribution of removal efforts, prioritization of
rapid emissions reductions and careful paths to long- term removals, and a need for
considering sustainability and human rights issues in the pursuit of CDR.
