Carbon dioxide removal is rapidly becoming a key focus in climate research and politics. This is raising concerns of “moral hazard” or “mitigation deterrence,” that is, the risk that promises of and/or efforts to pursue carbon removal end up reducing or delaying near-term mitigation efforts. Some, however, contest this risk, arguing that it is overstated or lacking evidence. In this review, we explore the reasons behind the disagreement in the literature. We unpack the different ways in which moral hazard/mitigation deterrence (MH/MD) is conceptualized and examine how these conceptualizations inform assessments of MH/MD risks. We find that MH/MD is a commonly recognized feature of modeled mitigation pathways but that conclusions as to the real-world existence of MH/MD diverge on individualistic versus structural approaches to examining it. Individualistic approaches favor narrow conceptualizations of MH/MD, which tend to exclude the wider political-economic contexts in which carbon removal emerges. This exclusion limits the value and relevance of such approaches. We argue for a broader understanding of what counts as evidence of delaying practices and propose a research agenda that complements theoretical accounts of MH/MD with empirical studies of the political-economic structures that may drive mitigation deterrence dynamics.

中文翻译：

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碳去除是否会推迟减排？

二氧化碳去除正迅速成为气候研究和政治的重点关注点。这引发了对“道德风险”或“缓解威慑”的担忧，即承诺和/或努力实现碳清除最终会减少或推迟近期缓解努力的风险。然而，一些人对这种风险提出质疑，认为这种风险被夸大或缺乏证据。在这篇综述中，我们探讨了文献中分歧背后的原因。我们解析道德风险/缓解威慑 (MH/MD) 概念化的不同方式，并研究这些概念化如何为 MH/MD 风险评估提供信息。我们发现 MH/MD 是建模缓解路径的一个普遍认可的特征，但关于 MH/MD 现实世界存在的结论在个体主义与结构性检验方法上存在分歧。个人主义方法倾向于狭隘的 MH/MD 概念，这往往会排除碳清除出现的更广泛的政治经济背景。这种排除限制了此类方法的价值和相关性。我们主张更广泛地理解什么可以视为延迟实践的证据，并提出了一个研究议程，通过对可能推动缓解威慑动态的政治经济结构的实证研究来补充 MH/MD 的理论说明。