Finance and innovation to couple negative emissions and sustainable development: ERC Starting Grant to Francesco Lamperti

Tackling climate change through the development and diffusion of negative emission technologies ensuring that they act as an enabler, not a barrier, of long-run sustainable development. This is the topic of FIND, the project with which the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment (EIEE) researcher and associate professor at the Institute of Economics – Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies was awarded one of the most important European grants.

Francesco Lamperti, junior scientist at RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment and associate professor at the Institute of Economics – Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, is among the winners of the latest ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research.

The grants, part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, support cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, from medicine and physics to social sciences and humanities, and awarded this year 400 bright minds, totalling over €628 million.

The FIND (Finance and Innovation to couple Negative emissions and sustainable Development) project, proposed and coordinated by Lamperti, will develop an innovative framework to assess the feasibility and social desirability of limiting global warming through the diffusion of negative emission technologies. Indeed, current global climate action is deeply insufficient to deliver the objectives of the Paris Agreement and addressing climate change emissions reduction represents just one facet of the challenge of containing global warming to 1.5 °C. To reach this global goal, will likely require the deployment of carbon dioxide removals, .i.e. removing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through new technologies.

“Negative emission technologies are an extremely fascinating and heterogeneous set of solutions to increase the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, which naturally works through forests and oceans. The problem with these technologies is that they are risky, immature, and controversial. However, the more global actions to combat climate change get stuck, the more such technologies are needed. They can be the perfect insurance against climate change or lead to a failure delaying decarbonization. All is about how – and where – they will be developed, diffused, and deployed”, affirms Lamperti.

FIND will combine innovation studies, economic geography, financial economics, complex system modeling, and macroeconomic analysis to ascertain the feasibility of carbon removal strategies and their potential for sustainable development, both within Europe and beyond. The outcomes hold the potential to fundamentally reshape the current approach to climate policy, especially considering Europe’s commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 while spurring green and inclusive growth.

“The project consists of three phases, – Lamperti continues – In the first phase we will try to build a database that collects the main information on carbon removal solutions, on private and public subjects that are investing in the sector and on the most important innovations that could accelerate the process of development and diffusion. In the second phase we will try to develop financial mechanisms that can support these technologies in the long run and that take into account the risks that these solutions bring. In the third and final phase, we will investigate how carbon removal technologies can influence climate policies and the functioning of emission markets, including the European one.”

For more information:

ERC Starting Grants 2023 – Statistics

More information about the ERC grants at the official ERC Press Release