As hard as it is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, an even bigger challenge lies ahead: We now need to remove much of what we’ve already added to the atmosphere.
The math of climate change is simple and stark. To keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we can only emit another 600 Gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. At current rates, this will take 14 years. As a result, almost all scientific analyses assume large amounts of carbon dioxide begin to be removed from the atmosphere in the next decade, and by the second half of the century we must remove much more than we emit.
How much carbon dioxide are we talking about? Think of all the greenhouse gas emissions that will be emitted from all the cars, power plants, factories, and deforestation over the next 20 years. By 2100, we will need to take about that same amount out of the atmosphere.
Here is the rub: We don’t know how to do carbon dioxide removal at that scale.
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