Most ambitious decarbonization scenarios rely on photosynthesis-based technologies for a significant portion of net greenhouse gas emissions reductions. These technologies have the potential to contribute to emissions reductions by providing low-emissions energy, linking to CCS to produce negative-emissions energy, increasing the carbon content of the biosphere, or reducing emissions from land-use change. While all of these options will be attractive at some scale, setting realistic goals is challenging, especially because the constraints and tradeoffs for these technologies are so different from other components of a low-carbon economy strategy. Overall, the constraints imposed by land and water demands, governance and implementation challenges, and sensitivity to climate change argue for the expectation that these technologies will play a meaningful, but not dominant, part of the world during the 21st century. portfolio of low-carbon solutions.

Speaker biography

Chris Field is the Perry L. McCarty Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford University. Before his 2016 appointment to the Stanford Woods Institute, Field was a staff member at the Carnegie Institution for Science (1984-2002) and founding director of Carnegie's Department of Global Ecology (2002-2016). Field's research focuses on climate change, especially solutions that improve lives now, reduce future warming, and support vibrant economies.

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