Image competition

We are delighted to announce our first-ever image competition to create a visual archive for Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) methods, technologies, and practices!   

We aim to demystify GGR by highlighting what it can look like, where it exists, how we interact with it in our everyday lives, and how it can shape climate futures. Help us make solutions to climate change more accessible by using your creative eye to showcase this rapidly evolving industry and expose wider audiences to it. We want to see how your images can evoke emotion and encourage audiences to engage with this exciting field. 

What is GGR? 

Also known as Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR – when referring specifically to carbon dioxide), GGR covers a wide range of methods for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) or other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and store it in land, the ocean, geological formations, and other naturally occurring or manmade materials with varying degrees of permanence. The methods themselves are wide-ranging and provide a host of co-benefits and some risks for society, shifting political and economic systems, and the environment on a global scale. For nine non-exhaustive examples of GGR in action, click here.

For further information, click here, and for links to details of different GGR methods and technologies, click here. 

Who can participate? 

Participation will be open to all.  

We invite anyone – researcher, photographer, artist, or designer – to seek, highlight, and reflect on the presence of GGR in multiple facets of our lives – environmental, economic, sociocultural, or political. Whether you’re a researcher who is passionate about photography or design; a photographer, designer, or visual artist who takes a keen interest in climate change and its solutions; or a climate journalist, activist, field-worker, or technician with a creative flair, do consider participating.  

If you are unsure your work qualifies, do not hesitate to contact us ggr.images@smithschool.ox.ac.uk. 

Categories 

This competition is open to both photographs and digital illustrations, leaving ample room for interpretation and creativity. Both categories have distinct themes and will be judged accordingly. 

Capturing GGR: submit photographs that compellingly capture one or more GGR methods or technologies as they exist or are being developed in our natural or built environment in the present day.

Envisioning GGR: illustrate possible climate futures by creatively engaging with or imagining scenarios that could take shape by adopting various approaches to GGR. This can be a digital illustration, graphic image, or a hand-drawn illustration rendered in a digital format. 

What we offer

• 7 shortlisted entries in each category will be displayed at the Old Fire Station, Oxford (OFS) for one month from 3rd June 2024 until our Goodbye Greenhouse Gas community event at the venue on 20th June 2024 
• All shortlisted entries will be displayed at the Oxford Mathematical Institute during the 3rd International Negative Carbon Dioxide Emissions Conference, hosting more than 350 leading researchers, policymakers, and GGR experts from June 18-21st 2024 
• All shortlisted entries will also be up on our website for a public voting ballot, and will subsequently become part of a first-of-its-kind visual archive of GGR. Details of the images and your email address will be shared.  
• CO2RE will additionally consider using entries that are awarded top and runner-up prizes (duly attributed to the applicant) in high-profile publications, alongside key communications and engagement outputs for CO2RE and the Greenhouse Gas Removal Demonstrators Programme.  

Winners of the top prizes will be announced on the final day of the conference on 21 June 2024.   

Judging criteria 

Evidence – engagement with existing research to draw attention to GGR’s growing scientific development, its many environmental co-benefits, or its potential to help reverse or reduce the most profound sociological, economic, and political challenges presented by climate change.  

Communication – the image should capture GGR and its ability to influence how people perceive, understand, and envision GGR and its interaction with our environment and everyday lives.  

Impact – capacity to captivate or evoke emotion, compelling audiences to engage with, learn about, or reflect on GGR as a potential solution to the climate crisis and the future of ‘net zero’. 

Entrants in the photography category must: 

• Clearly depict GGR, covering one or more of its techniques 
• Highlight the presence of GGR in our physical environment, built infrastructure, or everyday life 
• Emphasise a key aspect of GGR, through method, context, impact, or implications 

Entrants in the illustration or design category must: 

• Creatively illustrate or design possible scenarios that directly relate to GGR, ensuring they are ready for print or digital use and circulation
  
• Highlight a future vision for one or more GGR techniques and/or social, scientific, political, or economic concerns that demonstrably relate to them 
• Demonstrate an understanding of and interpret different outcomes that could result from various approaches to GGR and its deployment 

Summary timeline 

• Submissions deadline: Noon, 8 May 2024 
• Top 14 entries announced: end May 2024 
• Online public vote: end May 2024
• OFS display start: 3 June 2024 
• Online public vote and OFS display close: 20 June 2024  
• Winners announced: 21 June 2024