Kick-off with Federal Minister Stark-Watzinger
For the next three years, researchers in the CDRterra funding line will investigate how carbon dioxide can be removed from the atmosphere. “To limit the increase in average global temperatures to 1.5 °C, it now seems that we have no choice but to deploy methods that will generate what are termed ‘negative emissions’,” said CDRterra coordinator Prof. Dr. Julia Pongratz at the opening. She holds the Chair of Physical Geography and Land Use Systems at the Department of Geography at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU). “Using negative emissions means that we have to find ways to actively remove CO₂ from the atmosphere – through reforestation or technical processes, for example – and then store it permanently”, Pongratz added.
The CDRterra research program is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and coordinated by Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich. Ten collaborative projects involving more than 100 scientists throughout Germany are united under its umbrella. They will uniformly and comprehensively evaluate the various methods for land-based CO₂ removal in terms of their ecological, technical, economic, political and societal feasibility. A particular focus will be on potential conflicts with other sustainability goals, for example over resources such as water and land.
LMU is also leading the the overarching CO₂ Removal Synthesis and Transfer Project CDRSynTra- which will bundle the research results of the projects.
“The strength of our consortia lies in their transdisciplinarity. A broad range of scientific disciplines are engaging in a dialogue with the government and the public at large, creating the scientific basis on which sensible ways to deploy CO₂ removal methods can be designed”, says Pongratz.