Felix Schenuit

After the adoption of a EU-wide net-zero greenhouse gas emissions target, the issue of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is climbing up the EU climate policy agenda. Based on an analysis of CDR-related aspects of the Climate and Energy Framework 2030 and new actor positions in the context of the European Green Deal, the chapter traces the emergence CDR policymaking in the EU. We find that CDR is not entirely new in EU climate policy. Recently, spurred by the new climate target structure in the EU climate law, new CDR initiatives, processes and debates have been launched. The analysis shows that prospects of CDR policymaking will be shaped by ‘geographies of net zero’: Differences and conflicts over climate targets, composition of residual emissions, removal capacities, and socio-political preferences for different CDR methods in EU member states will affect future legislation.

To reach the mitigation goals of the Paris Agreement, many countries will have to phase out their coal power plants prematurely, i.e., before the end of their normal lifetimes, which will lead quite possibly to significant stranded assets. This could present a major challenge, particularly for many of the rapidly developing countries whose electricity demand is growing and which are currently expanding their coal fleets. Recent research shows that countries with aging power plants and decreasing coal consumption are more inclined to phase out coal, but little is known about where, why, and how coal power plants are being prematurely retired. In the context of the hybrid Paris Agreement, attention is increasingly shifting to domestic mitigation capacities and, alongside this—given the vested interests involved in different sectors—to state capacity to implement the transformations required to achieve deep decarbonization. In this article, we aim to study those capacities in the context of coal phaseout. We use a recent and comprehensive global dataset on coal power plants and employ a mixed-methods research design to (a) identify general emerging patterns with respect to premature coal fleet retirement, and (b) derive stylized types of political strategies to prematurely retire coal power plants. We find state capacity to be a robust predictor of general and premature coal retirement, and we identify three main strategies that countries have used to date to prematurely retire coal: (a) rein-in using top-down regulatory enforcement of environmental, climate, or other regulations that affect the operating licenses of coal plants; (b) buy-out or provision of compensation to companies and regions to appease vested interests; and (c) crowd out where accelerating market and price dynamics in the power sector crowd out coal. We propose that future research should explore more systematically the kinds of strategy that might be most promising in the regions and countries needing to rapidly phase out coal, taking into account their political structures, and also the implications that such strategies might have for global mitigation efforts.

The demands of the climate movement ‐ for rapid and profound change ‐ are based on scientific findings and the political commitments to theParis Agreement.The activists are, therefore, factually “right”. However, being right is not enough to justify or to accelerate the practical implementation of knowledge and decisions. We explain which social factors are at work, and how the climate movement can benefit if they incorporate these factors into actions for social change.