CO2 Out Of Sight, Not Out Of Mind

"For most people, the ill-effects seem too distant for climate change to meaningfully impact their behavior."

The climate on our planet that allowed our civilization to flourish is a classic example of a public good: everyone enjoys it irrespective of whether they spend their money and effort to maintain it. This affects our decision-making, because it gives rise to a free rider problem. That is, people are not necessarily willing (or able) to pay their fair share to incur the costs of maintenance. Moreover, change in the climate can barely be noticed within one generation. Thus, for most people, the ill-effects seem too distant for climate change to meaningfully impact their behavior. This is why it is so important that we all recognize the problem and look for solutions together. In the case of CCS, the negotiations with governments and the public have proven very difficult.

First, let’s look at how CCS works. This technology allows to do exactly what the name says: capture, transport (if required) and securely store CO2, usually several kilometers underground, at a suitable location chosen by geologists. The gas is then pumped into a reservoir with an impenetrable cap rock – often the same reservoir that was keeping the oil and gas in place for millions of years. As of now, this is the only proven technology that can be used on a global scale to reduce emissions. There is no doubt that the transition to renewables and the search for technologies that deliver higher energy efficiency should continue, but there are many production processes where fossil fuels cannot be substituted yet, such as production of steel, iron and cement, to name a few. CCS can be an important “interim” technology capturing these CO2 emissions until we find out how to produce these materials in a cleaner way.

Like any technology, it comes with risks, the main one being a CO2 leakage. An abrupt leakage might be dangerous for the local community, because high concentrations of CO2 pose health risks. Research shows that the probability of such an event is extremely small and it is very unlikely to cause harm to people or local flora and fauna [2]. Nonetheless, the technology is still perceived as unacceptably risky by many, which might stem from the behavioral biases we possess.

Studies have shown that people are prone to omission bias [3]: that is, they favor inaction allowing harm to be done instead of an action that might cause harm. Baron (1986) notes that “omission bias seems to arise from a basic view that what is to be avoided is the direct causation of harm” [4]. He demonstrated this effect in parents’ decision to vaccinate children: many opt out thinking that vaccination itself poses risks for the child and hence they do not want to potentially cause harm by their actions, even though statistically the advantages of vaccination far outweigh the risks. CCS is perceived in a similar way. With respect to this technology, we seem to have two options:

build a CCS and take on the (however small) risk of potential leakage

OR

do not build anything and face the consequences of climate change.

The latter prospect seems far from ideal, but the public might favor it simply because they want to avoid causing any harm at any cost. The fact that environment is a public good aggravates this perception, because the initiatives to reduce CO2 emissions might not benefit directly to the country or community introducing them and will be effective only if implemented on a global scale. In a way, this is similar to the prisoner’s dilemma, because cooperation of all the countries and communities is not guaranteed, so each one of them is inclined not to take the risk of adopting CCS on their own. That is why using a technology that implies that potential risks are localized but the benefits are shared requires us to recognize this bias and coordinate our effort globally.

Another problem is that people prefer to focus on reducing a smaller risk to zero rather than significantly reducing a bigger risk. This is known as zero risk bias. For CCS, this means that communities and politicians would oppose building a CCS facility (i.e. reducing the risk of leakage to zero) rather than contribute to a reduction of a greater risk of global warming. In this case it is important to frame the options clearly and do an objective assessment of all the risks involved. On the one hand, we have a risk of CO2 leakage. The estimated probability of this happening is miniscule [5] and is very unlikely to cause harm to living organisms. On the other hand, if CO2 emissions are not curbed, climate change will certainly worsen.