Intergenerational equity and responsibility: a call to internalize impermanence into certifying carbon sequestration

Carbon Dioxide Removal that limits or reduces cumulative emissions for the goal of climate action requires sequestration. The assurance that carbon remains sequestered is colloquially known as permanence. In current certification frameworks, permanence is often ascribed a duration inconsistent with and much shorter than the scientific understanding of the lifetime of carbon in the environment. These frameworks treat “impermanence” as an externality. First, this violates the polluter-pays principle rooted in international law, as it absolves the emitter and storage operator of responsibility. Second, any failure of sequestration threatens intergenerational equity, which is a binding concept in climate treaties. Impermanence can be managed if the responsibility for future losses is clearly delineated. For responsible carbon management, we propose shifting the responsibility for the carbon onto the storage operator. As a result the cost of monitoring the carbon reservoir and re-sequestration of any losses will have to be incorporated into the cost of certificates of carbon sequestration. Internalizing monitoring and re-sequestration put temporary and long-term storage on equivalent footing and allow for both. It therefore would strengthen the likelihood of success in reaching the climate goal and would help bridge a major gap between typically short-lived “natural” solutions and theoretically long-lived “engineered” solutions without compromising intergenerational equity.