Focusing on the aspect of durability, this paper explores the politics of knowledge of carbon sinks in the British carbon dioxide removal sector arguing for carbon sinking as a practice of climate change mitigation that configure the human-environmental relationship in different ways.
Long abstract:
The logic of net-zero climate targets demands not only emission reductions but also carbon sinking. Decarbonisation is expected to be complemented by systematic carbon dioxide removal compensating for those emissions that are considered hard to abate. Various methods – from planting new forests, soil carbon enhancement through biochar application and ocean fertilization, to enhanced rock weathering and direct air capture with carbon storage - promise to measurably remove carbon from the atmosphere and durably sink it in four forms: in biogenic material through photosynthesis, as solid minerals, dissolved in fluid or as a gas stored in geological formations underground. But what does durability mean? How is it measured, compared and evaluated? Based on expert interviews with professionals and scientists in the British carbon dioxide removal industry, in this paper I will explore the politics of knowledge of carbon sink temporalities. Tracing the production of imaginaries of durability carried by different carbon sink actors, I will show how an arbitrary framing of temporality becomes an instrument to legitimize some sinks over others. Using durability as a lens, the paper argues that studying the politics of carbon sinks needs to go beyond the dichotomy of environmental compartments and engineered technologies and instead explore all forms carbon sinking as practices of climate change mitigation that configure the human-environmental relationship in different ways.