Join our upcoming UPTAKE Webinar in the “CDR and Society” series
Topic: Community engagement in carbon dioxide removal: learnings for responsible deployment
Date: January 22, 2024 – 16:00 -17: 00 CEST
As efforts to develop and deploy technologies for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) accelerate, the topic of public and community engagement warrants careful consideration. In pursuit of responsible and sustainable deployment pathways, key questions include: How are publics responding to experiments and early-stage deployment? Which forms of public and community engagement are meaningful for different carbon removal technologies and the socio-political contexts in which they unfold?
In this webinar, we reflect on community responses to a variety of carbon removal (pilot) projects and draw lessons learnt for responsible deployment of carbon removal technologies.
Speakers:
Molly James, Airhive
Sara Nawaz, American University
Juanita von Rothkirch, ETH Zürich
Moderation: Livia Fritz and Benjamin Sovacool, Aarhus University
Register here
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On January 22, Aarhus University hosted the first UPTAKE webinar in the series “CDR and society”.
Accelerating efforts to develop and deploy carbon removal technologies come with a number of questions on how to do so in ways that are responsible, and that adequately attend to the needs and concerns of local communities and the public at large.
This well-attended webinar, with participants from various sectors of society, provided a space for reflection and learning on meaningful community engagement for responsible deployment of carbon dioxide removal technologies.
Following an introduction by Livia Fritz and Benjamin Sovacool (Aarhus University), three panellists from research and practice shared their learnings with regard to community and public engagement in diverse socio-political context, taking us from the UK to Iceland to Canada and the US. In their talks they provided examples and discussed early-stage deployment of direct air capture, (BE)CCS and marine carbon removal.
In the Q&A session following the talks, participants and panellists brought these diverse experiences and contexts into conversation. They explored how institutional frameworks of ownership and governance can be opened-up, reflected on tensions in siting decisions between geological requirements and public preferences and discussed who should be responsible for community engagement as the carbon removal industry is beginning to scale.
Talks:
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Sara Nawaz, Director of Research at American University’s Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal: “Three sets of deliberative workshops on marine carbon removal: Results & reflections for the field”.
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Molly James, researcher and community consultant, Airhive: “Direct air capture in your backyard: Learnings from the UK and North America ”
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Juanita von Rothkirch, doctoral candidate, ETH Zürich: “How to have fruitful conversations about international (BE)CCS? Lessons from the Coda Terminal Project”
Some key take-aways for meaningful engagement:
- Timing of engagement matters
- Consider local specificities, community needs and align with existing initiatives
- Attend to distrust and broken promises in the past
- Provide space for disagreement and debate, rather than closing down for the sake of acceptance
- Embed deliberation over discrete projects in broader conversations on how carbon removal can be part of just transitions
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