CDR Moral Hazard

Carbon dioxide removal creates a moral hazard: if we can pull CO2 out of the air later, the urgency of cutting emissions now diminishes. Oil companies have embraced CDR technology precisely because it implies that fossil fuels can continue if emissions are cleaned up afterward. The question is whether CDR is a necessary complement to emissions reduction or a dangerous excuse for delay.

The mitigation deterrence argument. Every dollar invested in CDR is a dollar not invested in emissions reduction. If policymakers believe CDR will be available at scale by 2050, they may tolerate weaker near-term emissions targets. Climate models that assume 5-10 Gt/year of CDR by 2050 implicitly permit higher near-term emissions, effectively borrowing against a technological capability that does not yet exist.

The counterargument. Some emissions are genuinely hard to eliminate: cement production, aviation, agriculture, and industrial heat. Even with aggressive reduction, residual emissions of 5-10 Gt/year are likely. CDR is not an alternative to reduction for these sectors; it is the only option. Opposing CDR because of moral hazard risks leaving these emissions permanently unaddressed.

How do you capture CDR's benefits without enabling delay?

Sequencing and conditionality. Policy can require CDR investment only after emissions reduction targets are met, not instead of them. The EU's carbon removal certification framework (2023) explicitly treats CDR as supplementary to, not substitutive for, emissions cuts. The design principle: CDR should address residual emissions that cannot be eliminated, not emissions that could be eliminated but were not.

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