A directional dilemma in climate innovation

ABSTRACT

One branch of the responsible innovation literature involves the direction of innovation: if the public or decision-makers can or should direct innovation, how should innovation be directed? This paper explicates a case study where directionality – the plurality of plausible values for innovation – is directly implicated. In this case, a key technology may require a strategy for innovation, but there are contrasting normative reasons to drive that innovation in different ways, reflecting two distinct moral values, ‘effectiveness’ and responsiveness to ‘need’. In this case, carbon dioxide removal, these values may well conflict. Strategically deploying carbon dioxide removal in a cost-effective manner would tend to support siting it in regions where there are significant oil and gas operations. In contrast, strategically deploying carbon dioxide removal in response to need would tend to support siting it in regions where expected demand for the technology is required for development.

KEYWORDS:

• Carbon dioxide removal
• climate change
• climate ethics
• climate justice
• directed innovation
• responsible innovation

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the editors Lukas Fuchs, Bonno Pel, and Rafael Ziegler for written feedback as well as comments from the April 2023 ‘Critiquing the Direction for Innovation’ workshop participants at the Centre de recherche en éthique in Montréal, Canada (also organized by Lukas Fuchs and Rafael Ziegler) and the February 2023 seminar participants at the University College Cork Philosophy Department Research Seminar, especially Alessandro Salice. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for helpful critiques that led me to clarify a variety of points.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Note that one feature of CDR is that the location of innovation and the location of application cannot easily be decoupled. Since storage is site-specific, the innovation processes are largely dependent on the (geophysical) features of the storage location. As Malhotra and Schmidt (2020) point out, this highly ‘customized’ characteristic of CDR means that innovation is more challenging than with mass-produced low-carbon technologies. Also note that the physical location of CDR is important, since the IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventory guidelines (IPCC 2006, which was the first National Greenhouse Gas Inventory to discuss CDR) indicate that, for cross-border operations, the location where the capture occurs is where the relevant emissions credits are inventoried (5.20).

2 Many normative discussions in moral philosophy operate in terms of consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. I purposefully intend to avoid these accounts, since they tend to silo audiences. My hope is that the values I consider here are, at least in principle, of interest to people regardless of which of these first-order normative theories they tend to endorse.

3 Indeed, climate change itself might involve a variety of winners or losers, with different associated demands of justice (Mintz-Woo and Leroux 2021).

4 For an introduction to distributional justice in a broader justice landscape, cf. Zimm et al. (2024).

5 I focus on geological reservoirs, since these are usually taken to be the most understood and easiest to scale storage technological options (little to no innovation is required in order to store carbon in trees and other living matter). Other potential reservoirs are terrestrial, e.g. trees or grasses, and ocean, especially deep ocean sediment. These are plausibly less sensitive to innovation directionality, so are less effective illustrations of the points being made here.

6 As mentioned above, CDR actually covers a wide variety of options, and not all of them match this schema. For instance, afforestation and reforestation (tree planting) is sometimes thought of as CDR even though the carbon is not sequestered by human processes. My analysis focuses on BECCS and DACCS, since these are also key technologies but are more sensitive to innovation than is the case with afforestation and reforestation.

7 This dilemma arises assuming that innovation can be directed to a limited extent or with finite resources. If there are infinite resources, then both of these normative values could be promoted; obviously, in the real world, that is never the case.

8 The mechanisms whereby citizens affect transitions or require certain kinds of climate policy are beyond the scope of this paper, but are complex and multifaceted (Köhler et al. 2019).

9 Note that this distribution of burdens is compatible with the guidance provided by IPCC (2006).

10 One might also want to go on the offensive against directing innovation on the basis of needs in this context: developing countries only face these hard choices because they invested in fossil fuel intensive infrastructure. They shouldn't have done that, and the financial benefits they expected from this infrastructure are unjust or unjustified.

11 One might also want to go on the offensive against directing innovation on an effectiveness basis in this context: the fact that some countries could have better prospects for storage development and deployment reflects historical inequities (e.g. in oil and gas development and human capital development) which are undeserved and not a good basis for current decision-making.

Additional information

Funding

Gold open access costs covered by IReL (a consortium of libraries in Ireland) and KEMÖ (a consortium of libraries in Austria).