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FAB-GGR is a four-year, £1.6 million multi-institute consortium project that aims to better define the real world feasibility and consequences of large-scale afforestation and biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) approaches to greenhouse gas removal (GGR). These two greenhouse gas removal approaches have been chosen because they: have a common basis in growing biomass on available land; and play the largest roles of any GGR approaches in future low emission scenarios that keep global mean temperature increase to below 1.5 °C and 2 °C.

The interdisciplinary research team is led by Dr Naomi Vaughan and involves scientists, engineers and social scientists from the University of East Anglia, the University of Manchester, the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen with support from project partners at the Met Office.  The project is part of the wider Greenhouse Gas Removal Research Programme, which will evaluate the potential and wider implications of a variety of options for large-scale removal of greenhouse gases. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ERSC) funds the Greenhouse Gas Removal programme.

The project objectives are:

1. To assess the nature and requirements of afforestation and BECCS supply chains that achieve global net greenhouse gas removal levels of 1 GtCO₂/yr and 10 GtCO₂/yr respectively.

2. To explore the real world feasibility of these 1 GtCO₂/yr and 10 GtCO₂/yr supply chains, by evaluating their associated wider consequential environmental, technical, economic, policy and societal implications and trade-offs.

To deliver these objectives, the project is structured into six work packages.

FAB-GGR has an Expert Stakeholder Group of about 30 people from business & industry, policy, civil society and academia that are involved over the lifetime of the project through participation in expert workshops run by the work package one team.  The purpose is to provide insight, guidance and feedback on our research from a spectrum of sectors and perspectives.

FAB-GGR has an International Advisory Panel who participate in our annual project workshops and provide advice and guidance to the scientific content of the project. The panel is comprised of:

Dr Silke Beck Science and Technology Studies. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig, Germany.

Chris Jones & Dr Andy Wiltshire. Carbon cycle modelling. Met Office, Exeter, UK.

Prof Detlef van Vuuren & Jonathan Doelman. Integrated Assessment Modelling. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Dr Jo House Principal investigator of the GGRiLS GAP project in the GGR programme. Environmental Science and Policy. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.

Prof Pete Smith. Principal investigator of the Soils-R-GRREAT consortium project in the GGR programme. Plant & Soil Science. University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.

Forster, J., Vaughan, N.E., Gough, C., Lorenzoni, I. and Chilvers, J., (2020) Mapping feasibilities of greenhouse gas removal: Key issues, gaps and opening up assessments. Global Environmental Change, 63, p.102073. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102073

Waller, L., Rayner, T., Chilvers, J., Gough, C.A., Lorenzoni, I., Jordan, A. and Vaughan, N., (2020) Contested framings of greenhouse gas removal and its feasibility: Social and political dimensions. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. 11, e649. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.649

Littleton, E.W., Harper, A.B., Vaughan, N.E., Oliver, R.J., Duran-Rojas, M.C. and Lenton, T.M. (2020) JULES-BE: representation of bioenergy crops and harvesting in the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator vn5. Geoscientific Model Development. 13, pp.1123–1136. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-1123-2020 

Gough, C. and Mander, S. (2019) Beyond Social Acceptability: Applying Lessons from CCS Social Science to Support Deployment of BECCS. Current Sustainable Renewable Energy Reports, 6(4), pp.116-123. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40518-019-00137-0

Röder, M., Thiffault, E., Martínez-Alonso, C., Senez-Gagnon, F., Paradis, L. and Thornley, P. (2019) Understanding the timing and variation of greenhouse gas emissions of forest bioenergy systems. Biomass and bioenergy. 121, pp.99-114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2018.12.019

Albanito, F., Hastings, A., Fitton, N., Richards, M., Martin, M., Dowell, N.M., Bell, D., Taylor, S.C., Butnar, I., Li, P.H. and Slade, R. (2019) Mitigation potential and environmental impact of centralized versus distributed BECCS with domestic biomass production in Great Britain. GCB Bioenergy. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.12630

Harper, A.B., Powell, T., Cox, P.M., House, J., Huntingford, C., Lenton, T.M., et al. (2018) Land-use emissions play a critical role in land-based mitigation for Paris climate targets. Nature Communications9:2938 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05340-z

Gough, C., Garcia Freites, S., Jones, C., Mander, S., Moore, B., Pereira, C., Röder, M., Vaughan, N.E. and Welfle, A. (2018) Challenges to the use of BECCS as a keystone technology in pursuit of 1.5°C. Global Sustainability 1:e5 https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2018.3

Vaughan, N.E., Gough, C., Mander, S., Littleton, E.W., Welfle, A., Gernaat, D.E.H.J. and van Vuuren, D.P. (2018) Evaluating the use of biomass energy with carbon capture and storage in low emission scenarios. Environmental Research Letters13:044014 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaaa02

Keller, D.P., Lenton, A., Scott, V., Vaughan, N.E., Bauer, N., Ji, D., Jones, C.D., Kravitz, B., Muri, H., and Zickfeld, K. (2018) The Carbon Dioxide Removal Model Intercomparison Project (CDRMIP): rationale and experimental protocol for CMIP6. Geoscientific Model Development11: 1133-1160 https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-1133-2018