What is the role of technologies that filter carbon dioxide from the air in the context of climate protection? The Chamber of Deputies addressed this question in a debate. Some people are calling for more emphasis on Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and slow down climate change. But it’s not that simple, said DP MP Max Hahn in his speech.
The Democratic Party is in principle open to new technologies, and there is certainly still a great deal of potential in the area of sustainable technologies. But as far as the concrete use of negative emission technology is concerned, there would still be a number of problems.
First of all, it should be noted that these technologies are not yet ready to absorb significant amounts of CO2. These will have to evolve strongly to be efficient enough and cheap enough to deploy them on a large scale.
To put too many hopes in these technologies would therefore be a distraction from the real task: to reduce our emissions. The technology to do that is ready for use today. Therefore, one should focus on it instead of making false hopes of a miracle cure that would make the great efforts required superfluous.
The DP would certainly not be against negative emissions technologies, but these could still only be used complementary to the other measures, and only in a few years, if they were still significantly developed.
