Lessons for Nature‐Based Carbon Removal: Learning From the Politics of Environmental Conservation

Climate models and policy makers suggest that in order to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement, large‐scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches is a critical complement to aggressive decarbonization of the global economy. Recent proposed guidance from the UNFCCC suggests that nature‐based—rather than engineered—approaches to carbon removal are safer and proven. Such guidance presumes that tree‐planting and coastal restoration, for example, do not have negative social impacts. The history of similar interventions in the conservation field suggests several substantial social and justice considerations. Critical conservation scholarship has highlighted the potential negative social consequences of interventions such as protected areas and widescale tree‐planting. Mainstream conservation has, in some cases, ignored the social relations that are present in areas of environmental interventions. This has created a variety of issues, including displacement, economic marginalization, and the erasure of indigenous peoples and local communities. Nature‐based CDR shares and draws on a number of assumptions and policies of environmental conservation, specifically ignoring the social relations connecting people and environments. The carbon removal field can learn from critical conservation scholarship to offer a more effective and just model of carbon removal.This article is categorized under: The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge Climate, Ecology, and Conservation > Conservation Strategies Policy and Governance > International Policy Framework