IPCC Expert Meeting on Geoengineering

Annex 5: Breakout Group Reports
Breakout Group II.3 and 4: Carbon Dioxide Removal Issues and Risks
Chair: Gernot Klepper
Rapporteur: Shreekant Gupta
The summary that follows, written by the Chair and Rapporteur, characterizes the main points of the BOG II.3/4 discussion.
It may not reflect the personal views of the BOG’s Chair and Rapporteur. The summary is intended for consideration by
<strong>IPCC</strong> authors of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), but is neither endorsed nor approved by the <strong>IPCC</strong> or its Working
Groups. Participants in the BOG considered a series of questions related to geoengineering research, developed by the
meeting’s Scientific Steering Group.
Questions that might be addressed in this BOG include:
What are the most important issues or dimensions related to Carbon Dioxide Removal that <strong>IPCC</strong> authors might want
to consider in the AR5 (e.g., governance issues, physical science issues, etc.)?
What are the most important aspects of these issues to evaluate (e.g., unintended side effects, risks and uncertainties,
indirect/social costs, legal and governance issues)?
Can the most important aspects of these issues be supported by reference to the peer-reviewed literature, ideally
drawing from multiple lines of independent evidence? What is the available evidence and what are relevant
references?
Introduction
The BOG decided to take an integrated view on approaches that could be taken for assessing certain Carbon Dioxide
Removal (CDR) technologies. It went on to discuss priorities within these assessments and made suggestions to the authors
of AR5 regarding potential points of focus. The time did not permit discussion of whether currently available literature
could provide support for the assessment of the many CDR-technologies.
Potential focus of CDR assessments
The group looked at the matrix below, which lists a number of criteria that could be applied when different CDR options
are assessed. This matrix refers both to the evaluation of research on CDR and to its deployment. The CDR options listed
are not complete and should be further disaggregated. The naming of the criteria also should be interpreted as an
abbreviation for a more elaborate definition.
<strong>IPCC</strong> <strong>Expert</strong> <strong>Meeting</strong> on Geoengineering - 85