In order to achieve the Swiss net-zero climate target by 2050, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced as much as possible in all sectors. However, in the industrial sector – particularly in the cement industry and in waste incineration plants – and in agriculture, however, emissions will remain that are difficult to avoid. These will need to be captured at the source and stored in suitable locations (carbon capture and storage, CCS) or offset using negative emission technologies (NET). The call for proposals “Addressing Hard-To-Abate Emissions to Reach the Net-Zero Target of Switzerland” focuses on how this can be achieved in practice.
The researchers are to identify how hard-to-avoid emissions can be further reduced with technical, economic and social measures. Robust pathways are to be developed to establish and operate an infrastructure for the capture, utilisation, transport and storage of carbon. In addition, it will be investigated which utilisation paths biomass in Switzerland can best contribute to the net-zero target. Finally, it will be shown how the proposed concepts can achieve the necessary scaling from 2030 onwards.