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Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies are rapidly transitioning from research to real-world application. At present, private-sector oriented logics for CDR deployment dominate—a primacy that poses several risks for just and equitable outcomes. To date, however, there has been little consideration of how non-private sector ownership arrangements could facilitate just and equitable scaling of CDR. This paper explores several examples of alternative ownership and governance models, asking what other arrangements might be possible and desirable. Drawing on methods informed by qualitative evidence synthesis, we examine a diverse range of examples across sectors with structural similarities to select CDR approaches: agriculture, energy systems, mining, aquatic resources, and water infrastructure. Across alternative ownership arrangements in these sectors, including cooperatives, common-pool resource management, employee-ownership, Indigenous management, municipalization, and public-private partnerships, we consider how each ownership arrangement may (or may not) offer features that could be adapted to inform CDR governance arrangements. Our findings suggests that viable alternatives to private ownership and governance of CDR deserve further consideration and targeted focus in efforts to upscale CDR in the coming years.
Belotti et al. (Sat,) studied this question.