Zero emission? Carbon neutral? Carbon negative? What does it mean to achieve ‘net-zero’ emissions?
The Paris Agreement on climate change, signed on Dec. 12, 2015, by almost 200 states, was hailed as the turning point to keep global warming in check. Progress, however, has been insufficient.
(UNclimate change/flickr)
The Paris Agreement set countries on a path to limit global warming. Five years on, some progress has been made, but not enough. Decarbonizing the economy will take leadership and imagination.
Weathering of rocks like these basalt formations in Idaho triggers chemical processes that remove carbon dioxide from the air.
Matthew Dillon/Flickr
To avoid global warming on a catastrophic scale, nations need to reduce emissions and find ways to pull carbon from the air. One promising solution: spreading rock dust on farm fields.
After more than 30 years of trying, Canada has yet to meet one of its carbon emissions targets.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
Canada keeps revising and updating its emissions targets, diverting attention from its failures to make any progress at all.
Reducing pollution will help stave off climate change but avoiding the worst effects means taking CO2 out of the atmosphere at large scale.
AP Photo/J. David Ake
Countries are not on track to meet Paris Agreement goals. A climate researcher argues that a range of technologies that take CO2 out of the air are needed.
Are governments listening?
Karl Nesh/Shutterstock?
Wil Burns, American University School of International Service and Greg H. Rau, University of California, Santa Cruz
Adding industrial chemicals and natural alkaline minerals could slow climate change, but like other geoengineering proposals, it comes with many complex technical and legal challenges.
Earth is fast approaching the red lines that scientists have urged temperatures cannot cross if we have any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Here are the emergency measures we need.
Hydrogen fuel is just one opportunity for Australia in a clean-energy future.
Sebastian Kahnert/AAP
The latest UN climate report makes it clear that the task of limiting climate change is urgent and huge. We must start to transform our economy today, but it will bring rewards as well as challenges.
Without rapid and dramatic changes, the world will face a higher risk of extreme weather and other effects of climate change.
AP Photo/Mike Groll
The UN’s panel on climate change said that technologies to remove CO2 will be necessary to limit global temperature rise to only 1.5 degrees Celsius. But these techniques are largely unproven.