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Mitigating trade-offs between global food access and net-zero emissions: the potential contribution of direct air carbon capture and storage

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Abstract

“Net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of this century” affirmed by the Paris Agreement is one of humankind’s common targets. Many scenario analyses suggest that negative emission technologies (NETs), such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and afforestation, are required to achieve this target, but their large-scale deployment has a trade-off relationship with food security. We considered an innovative NET, direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), and analyzed its impact on global food access based on an indicator defined by food expenditure per GDP. We found that the scenario considering DACCS mitigates the adverse impact on food access in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa compared to the scenario not considering DACCS by alleviating food expenditure increase and GDP loss associated with emission reduction efforts. In the former scenario, DACCS becomes a mainstream NET instead of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, mitigating the food price increases associated with land use intensification. Furthermore, the implementation of DACCS allows the use of gas and oil without CCS in regions and sectors where emission reduction is difficult, contributing to the mitigation of the GDP loss associated with emission reduction. DACCS may be evaluated as a worthful option to pursue the simultaneous achievement of net-zero emissions and favorable food access.

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Data availability

All data used in this study were obtained from public sources. The outputs of this study, which are shown as figures, are available upon reasonable request.

Code availability

This analysis was conducted using models developed in our earlier studies. No additional code was constructed to produce the results presented here.

Notes

  1. We set the upper limit of the global maximum CO2 storage in 2050, 2070, and 2100, as 29, 38, and 49 Gt CO2/year, respectively, based on the approximately 1700 scenarios, excluding SSP5, which relies heavily on fossil energy and does not actively invest in alternative energy.

  2. If the international price calculated from the regional price and international market share deviated from the exogenously set international price, the regional price was adjusted slightly so that the two would match.

  3. The DNE21+ model takes into account downward trends in variable renewable energies (VRE) costs, but it assumes that grid integration costs increase as the VRE ratio increases (Akimoto and Sano 2021), so fossil fuels are estimated to remain a cost advantage in this “Reference” scenario. It should also be noted that this scenario does not include the ambitious renewable energy targets set by countries in recent years nor the surge in gas prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

  4. Regarding the amount of CO2 stored, our estimated values of about 15–25 Gt CO2/year in 2050 and about 25–45 Gt CO2/year in 2100 are larger than those in the previous studies (e.g., Rogelj et al. 2018b; Fuhrman et al. 2021). One possible reason for our large values is that we set the upper limits of the global maximum CO2 storage to avoid unnaturally large estimates of CCS but could not set them with explicit consideration of social acceptability. According to a literature review by Fuss et al. (2018), the technical potential of CCS is as large as 50,000 Gt CO2. However, overpressure could lead to the pollution of potable water, seismic activity, or leaks, which could not only reverse positive mitigation effects but also cause environmental and health damage at the leakage sites. Consideration of the possibility of such adverse effects of CCS and the social acceptability of this technology is one of the issues for future research.

  5. The global GDP losses due to climate change were set to be consistent with recent studies cited in the IPCC WG2 AR6, as described in Section 2.2.3. Regarding the global GDP loss due to emission reduction efforts, the figures of 2.1%–3.4% in 2050 under the 2 °C scenarios can be confirmed to be consistent with the description in the IPCC WG3 AR6 as follows:

    C12.2 in the SPM of the IPCC WG3 AR6 (Skea et al. 2022) stated that global GDP losses in 2050 for pathways of category C3, in which global warming is limited to 2 °C with > 67% probability, are projected to be 1.3–2.7%, assuming “immediate action” (i.e., coordinated global mitigation action is started between now and 2025 at least). Furthermore, Fig. 3.34D in the IPCC WG3 AR6 (Riahi et al. 2022) shows that the median value of the GDP losses would be approximately 0.8 percentage points larger if “delayed action (weaker short-term action)” is assumed. This means that the global GDP losses in 2050 for pathways of category C3 assuming “delayed action” are assessed in the range of approximately 2.1–3.5% and match well with our results of 2.1%, 2.7%, and 3.4% for the 2 °C-LcDAC, 2 °C-HcDAC, and 2ºC-NoDAC scenarios, respectively.

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Funding

This study was conducted as part of the alternative pathways towards sustainable development and climate stabilization (ALPS) project, which was supported by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Systems Analysis Group, Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE), 9-2, Kizugawadai, Kizugawa-Shi, Kyoto, 619-0292, Japan

    Ayami Hayashi, Fuminori Sano, Takashi Homma & Keigo Akimoto

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  1. Ayami Hayashi
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  2. Fuminori Sano
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  3. Takashi Homma
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  4. Keigo Akimoto
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Contributions

AH and KA designed the research. AH carried out the analysis, created figures, and wrote the draft of the paper. FS carried out the DNE21+ model analysis. TH developed the first version of the FAI model. All authors contributed to the discussion and interpretation of the results.

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Correspondence to Ayami Hayashi.

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Hayashi, A., Sano, F., Homma, T. et al. Mitigating trade-offs between global food access and net-zero emissions: the potential contribution of direct air carbon capture and storage. Climatic Change 176, 51 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03528-x

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