Current global climate action is deeply insufficient to deliver the objectives of the Paris Agreement and containing global warming to 1.5 °C will likely require the deployment of carbon dioxide removals. However, the technologies to sequestrate and store carbon from the atmosphere are currently immature, risky, and highly questioned. Understanding the effective diffusion potential of carbon removal methods and their socioeconomic and environmental impacts is pivotal to design future climate action. FIND will help to develop an innovative framework to assess the feasibility and social desirability of limiting global warming through the diffusion of negative emission technologies. It aims to ensure that negative emission technologies act as an enabler, not a barrier, of long-run sustainable development. The project will evaluate climate and non-climate policies to create robust, no-regret policy portfolios supporting a rapid and sustainable path to a net-zero society. FIND will be of high relevance for public policy and civil society, especially considering Europe’s commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 while spurring green and inclusive growth.

CMCC is second beneficiary, and it will be mainly involved in WP2 Finance and socio-economics  NET, and WP3 Impacts of NETs diffusion, especially, to the enhancement of the WITCH and DSK models and to the development of novel net-zero mitigation pathways. It also actively takes part to the project management (WP0) and outreach of the project (WP4).

General Objectives

FIND aims to examine the conditions allowing to transform negative emission technologies from a highstakes gamble to an adequate insurance policy compatible with long-term growth and development.

To address its foundational goal, FIND puts forth three main objectives:

1. Characterize the scientific and technological landscape of carbon removal solutions.
2. Evaluate the risks and tradeoffs of investments in carbon removal technologies.
3. Assess policies for carbon removal upscaling and their macroeconomic impacts.

Expected Results

The FIND project aims to provide a scientific breakthrough by developing a comprehensive and coherent framework to assess the feasibility and socio-economic desirability of limiting global warming through the diffusion of negative emission technologies. It will analyse a wide variety of existing and emerging CDR methods regarding their technological readiness, effectiveness, scalability, socio-economic co-benefits and trade-offs, risks, potential costs, social acceptability, governance implications, and interaction with other CDR and emission mitigation options. This new knowledge will enhance the representation of CDR methods in leading integrated assessment models to better understand the role of NETs in sustainable and inclusive development paths at regional, European, and global scales.