ABSTRACT
The chapter explores how methods for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are established as tools to manage climate change. According to more recent IPCC reports, grand-scale use of CDR, and primary bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), are necessities for the 1.5°C aspirational target. However, the methods are only modestly implemented today, and an upscaling would face and create many severe challenges. The IPCC’s climate mitigation scenarios and pathways are central to creating visions, and they also influence what future development is deemed viable. Therefore, the chapter illustrates how the STS concept boundary work can be applied to study how relevance and irrelevance are established in the drafting process of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. Four boundary work modes are presented: (1) remitting or referring to a limited scope or capacity, (2) claiming to be beyond the mandate: subjective and policy prescriptive, (3) restricting and defining what is legitimate science, and (4) relativizing uncertainties. Many critical comments were acknowledged by the report authors, but recurring comments questioning how viable BECCS is on a gigaton scale were often deflected through the boundary work modes. Thus, the IPCC 1.5°C report may present many futures that are too optimistic or perhaps even misleading.
