ABSTRACT
Negative emission strategies are central to avoiding catastrophic climate change. Engineered solutions such as direct air capture are far from cost-competitive. As past low-carbon technology transitions suggest, this calls for policy and political strategies beyond carbon pricing. We adopt a policy sequencing perspective that identifies policies that could create niche markets, building political support for later widespread deployment of direct air capture. Climate leaders could pursue an "incentives + mandates" policy strategy targeted at the oil and gas industry. These early moves could create global spillovers for follower countries by reducing technology cost and facilitating knowledge transfer through global firms.
ABSTRACT
Conservation of species and ecosystems is increasingly difficult because anthropogenic impacts are pervasive and accelerating. Under this rapid global change, maximizing conservation success requires a paradigm shift from maintaining ecosystems in idealized past states toward facilitating their adaptive and functional capacities, even as species ebb and flow individually. Developing effective strategies under this new paradigm will require deeper understanding of the long-term dynamics that govern ecosystem persistence and reconciliation of conflicts among approaches to conserving historical versus novel ecosystems. Integrating emerging information from conservation biology, paleobiology, and the Earth sciences is an important step forward on the path to success. Maintaining nature in all its aspects will also entail immediately addressing the overarching threats of growing human population, overconsumption, pollution, and climate change.
