Probabilistic assessment of uncertainty of carbon capture and storage for achieving Paris-Aligned goals
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The Paris Agreement’s ambition to limit global warming to well below 2.0ºC with an aspirational 1.5ºC goal relies on the rapid, large-scale, and sustained deployment carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report outlines different pathways through deterministic runs of integrated assessment models (IAMs), whose findings led to technically feasible scenarios with abundant storage utilization. However, real-world institutional and market barriers and storage uncertainty imply that the window of flexible mitigation policies is closing. To assess this, we employ a sampling-based stochastic framework comprising 2,500 global IAM scenarios, allowing statistical inference of energy, land use and emissions outcomes. Our results for 1.5ºC and 2.0ºC goals show a large-scale reliance on land-based CDR to bridge the gap and compensate for residual emissions. In addition, the scale of geological storage frequently exceeds “prudent planetary limits” across critical regions producing a concerning trend for beyond 2100.
