Elisa Paiusco

The ethical analysis of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) has developed within climate ethics, where distributive justice has assumed centre stage. As a result, CDR debates have inherited a similar focus on the allocation of burdens and benefits of deployment, leaving recognition-related issues comparatively underexplored. These issues concern how identity, culture, and social standing influence both who benefits from climate solutions and how these benefits are realised. For example, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage may displace local communities to make way for bioenergy crops. This is a pressing concern in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, where institutional safeguards may be insufficient to prevent land-grabbing and where Indigenous populations often reside. This article addresses this research gap by reframing the ethics of CDR through Simon Caney's integrationist perspective, extending it beyond distribution to include procedural and recognitional justice. Recognition is developed here through Nancy Fraser's status-based model, which conceives justice as requiring institutionalised respect and equal social standing. Building on the work of Marion Hourdequin, Christopher Preston and Wylie Carr on status-based recognition and climate engineering, this article applies Fraser's account to land-based CDR techniques. It argues that existing approaches risk overlooking the values, worldviews and knowledge systems of affected individuals and communities, and contends that recognition justice is indispensable to assessing the ethical acceptability of CDR deployment. Ultimately, land-based CDR serves as a concrete case for advancing a broader argument about recognition in climate ethics.

Although concerns about large-scale implementation of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) are well known, the ethical implications of ‘nature-based’ forms remain underexplored. Depending upon their implementation, these projects may benefit or harm local communities and biodiversity, risks that may be obscured by framing them as ‘natural’. We examine ‘nature-based’ CDR by contrasting three conceptions of the capabilities approach that may be extended to nonhumans. While two of these conceptions face justificatory challenges arising from widespread environmental pluralism, we build upon Amartya Sen’s conception to propose a deliberative model of climate justice. This model calls for participatory processes to determine which nonhuman entities are recognized as subjects of justice, ensuring that CDR decisions reflect the full range of environmental values at stake in each context.

The recent ethical debate concerning the implementation of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) has expanded the traditional scope of ethical analysis to investigate the appropriate role of CDR within the larger climate change mitigation discussion. Specifically, the recent scholarship is embedded in the disputed sustainable development landscape that presents various and competing visions of desirable futures. This article unpacks and clarifies the discussion between Darrel Moellendorf and Henry Shue as representatives of two camps in the recent debate, the former supporting carbon removal to achieve poverty-targeting sustainable development and the latter rejecting overreliance on CDR’s potential. Finally, moving beyond this discussion, the article proposes that a capabilities approach to CDR can adequately inform the debate, tackling some important limitations in the recent literature by offering a broader account of human well-being relevant to CDR implementation.