By Kevin Anderson and Glen Peters (Science) Reliance on negative-emission concepts locks in humankind’s carbon addiction In December 2015, member states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement, which aims to...
James Hansen and 11 other climate scientists have just released a new report "Young People’s Burden: Requirement of Negative CO2 Emissions". In it they outline how the only way to have any hope of stabilising greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere is to...
by David Roberts (Vox) If we mean what we say, no more new fossil fuels, anywhere. One of the morbidly fascinating aspects of climate change is how much cognitive dissonance it generates, in individuals and nations alike. The more you understand the brutal logic of...
A UK research fund has recently announced that £8.3m is being made available to fund up to 10 different research projects for a programme on Greenhouse Gas Removal from the Atmosphere. Examples given as potential topics for research proposals are: Soil carbon,...
Disclaimer: This article is broadly pro-geoengineering, but alarmingly the authors say it would take 160 years of sulphate injections to keep global temperature increases to under 2 degrees! by Atmos News How much geoengineering would be necessary to hit temperature...
Below is an article published by Greenpeace's Energy Desk about the latest scandal involving the Kemper County CCS project. This is extremely relevant to the bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) debate: Kemper County was one of two flagship CCS projects supported by the Obama...
by Ryan Cooper (THE WEEK) How can we solve climate change? One option is obvious, if a bit strange: If dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is the problem, then we could always suck it back out. If you think that sounds tricky, congratulations, you're correct....
This week's headline news from the world of technofix climate solutions is that a team of researchers led by the University of Illinois-Chicago has developed an artificial leaf. This leaf is a solar cell that uses the power of the sun to mimic photosynthesis and...
How likely is it that geoengineering will actually be used on a global scale? Perhaps it's more likely that hype around its effectiveness (eg "Negative Emissions", CCS and BioCCS) will just be used as a tactic to delay serious emissions cuts, plunging us further into...
Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) was granted a huge boost of support by the IPCC’s “mitigation” Working Group in their 5th Assessment Report. Since then growing attention has been given to this technofix as the main approach to removing CO2 from the...
Norway's parliament has just agreed to bring forward the goal of achieving "net zero" greenhouse gas emissions from 2050 to 2030, making it "a very ambitious goal". This means that in 14 years Norway will not be a net producer of climate-changing emissions. Why has...
by Christine Lepisto (treehugger) For those who lower their stress levels with the hope that we will be able to geo-engineer our way out of any impending global warming crises, here is another bit of sobering news. The suggestion has been made that increasing aerosol...
A recent paper in the "Science Advances" journal describes research that has been conducted into the possibility of firing lasers at clouds to change their albedo, and hence reflect more light away from the Earth. Here's an explanation of the science behind it, from...
by Mary Louise Malig (Global Forest Coalition) The Paris Agreement has been signed in New York with much fanfare, a lot of shaking hands and patting each other on the back, and claims that “we did it” – that is, agreed a historic climate agreement that would save the...
Plans are currently being modeled by the UAE to build a mountain and seed clouds above it in order to tackle an acute water shortage. This isn't necessarily geoengineering (extreme weather modification maybe), but the thinking behind it mirrors the wrong approach...
This comment by Biofuelwatch's Almuth Ernsting was posted in reply to a guest article by Prof Jason Lowe (Head of Knowledge Integration and Mitigation Advice at the UK’s Met Office and lead scientist for the government-funded AVOID2 research programme) which was...
by Greg Foyster (Eureka Street) It's a credo of consumer capitalism: never address the cause when you can create an industry treating the symptoms. This is the logic behind many profitable businesses, from cholesterol-lowering pills that compensate for poor diet and...
An article in BizGreen called “How to build a billion dollar industry to fight climate change” features insights from two mmbers of the University of Berkley's Centre for Carbon Removal, describing how increased funding from philanthropic sources can play a key role...
An article published in January by the Journal of Geophysical Research and covered briefly in Nature describes how brightening and extending the lives of ship wakes can be used to alter the albedo of the oceans, and cool global temperatures. It adds ship wakes to a...
by Almuth Ernsting (New Internationalist) Are certain proposals to reduce carbon emissions based on technological hype? At a COP21 side event last December, proponents of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) hosted Mike Marsh, the CEO of publicly-owned Canadian energy...
by Steven T. Corneliussen (Physics Today) To mitigate climate change, has the planet “gambled its future on the appearance in a puff of smoke of a carbon-sucking fairy godmother”? During the Paris climate summit late last year, European policy analyst Oliver Geden’s...
In his recent article in Nature, Dr Philip Williamson highlights how the targets set out in the Paris Agreement mask an underlying assumption that they will be met through large-scale carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere and, in particular, through Bioenergy...
by Alex Kirby (Climate News Network) New research suggests that fertilising oceans with iron to increase the growth of algae that absorb carbon dioxide is not the hoped-for answer to reducing global warming. LONDON, 28 January, 2016 – One keenly-argued possible way of...
by Kevin Anderson (kevinanderson.info) The Paris Agreement is a genuine triumph of international diplomacy and of how the French people brought an often fractious world together to see beyond national self interest. Moreover, the agreement is testament to how...