The quest for climate solutions reached a critical turning point when scientists recently concluded that curbing the crisis will require more than just cutting emissions: We must vacuum out the carbon already pumped into the skies.
Without question, global leaders and investors should pursue the goal of decarbonizing the economy to limit the damage as much as possible. But a new report led by the University of Oxford observes that there is already so much carbon dioxide baked into the atmosphere that current concentrations will push our planet past 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming even if we were to build a 100% zero-carbon economy tomorrow.
The "State of Carbon Dioxide Removal” report is one of the first independent assessments of how much carbon dioxide is currently being removed from the atmosphere and how much will need to be scrubbed out year after year to stabilize greenhouse gas levels by midcentury. It’s an important contribution to the climate conversation and a topic that will be getting a lot more attention going forward.