🚨 Out now in @climate-policy.bsky.social: New research with @thomwetzer.bsky.social @rubenpruetz.bsky.social @joerirogelj.bsky.social Lavanya Rajamani, Marianne Wood and Ewan White: States are depending heavily on CO2 removal to meet climate targets, risking the Paris Agreement goal.

-- Inadequate near-term emission reductions are common, jeopardise the Paris climate targets and create substantial long-term dependence on CO2 removal to eliminate a temperature overshoot, with its associated risks.

-- There is pervasive lack of transparency and ambiguities in states' international reporting, with respect to how states intend to meet their climate targets. -- However, dependence on high levels of CO2 removal is widespread and substantial risks to delivery of planned CO2 removal exist.

-- Reliance on international cooperation to deliver CO2 removal (e.g. via carbon trading mechanisms) is also common in states' plans and amplifies these risks. -- Non-delivery of planned CO2 removal would raise global temperatures further, worsening the impacts of climate change.

To minimise risks associated with reliance on CO2 removal, states should prioritise pathways that minimise overshoot and dependence on removals to reach net-zero. Risks associated with high CDR dependence might render state action inconsistent with norms and principles of international law.

That previous work was published in @science.org and can be found here: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Legal analysis, in conjunction with the risks associated with CDR-dependent targets assessed here, could clarify states’ mitigation obligations under international law and facilitate progression past a risk-blind and indiscriminate use of scientific pathways in assessing states’ targets. More soon!