CO₂-removal News

Financial Express: Time for a man-made solution for a man-made problem?

As world leaders congregate in Paris for the UN Climate Conference, a special report in the Economist discusses some novel technical solutions, which, if implemented, could pave the way to stopping global warming and reducing carbon emissions. One solution called “geo-engineering” involves the direct capturing of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, through the use of plants specifically grown in power stations.

Link

Sargoni, Janine; Lockley, Andrew (2015): Environment Policy. Solar Radiation Management and the voluntary carbon market

Sargoni, Janine; Lockley, Andrew (2015): Environment Policy. Solar Radiation Management and the voluntary carbon market. In Environmental Law Review 17 (4), pp.[nbsp]266–269. DOI: 10.1177/1461452915611277[nbsp]

„The evidence suggests that SRM may also cause a reduction in atmospheric CO2, thereby creating potential carbon credit accrual. The emergence of private interests, in the form of credits tradeable in the voluntary carbon markets, represents a new challenge for the effective public regulation of SRM. Without an appropriate response, major, novel and potentially unacceptable risks to the climate system, biosphere and society may occur.“

Link

KIB: Climate Engineering – A Technofix to Solve the Problem of Climate Change?

„In this article, we take up these questions, arguing that talking about climate engineering as a technological solution to a social problem – i.e., climate change – can discursively lead to the side-lining of these repercussions and of alternative solutions to climate change. To do so, we will first lay out the rationale of climate engineering and explain what it is. In a second step, we identify potential technical and political side-effects before we critically discuss whether in the current debate climate engineering being framed as a ‘technological fix’. In the conclusion, we summarize our argumentation and provide an outlook on the politics of climate engineering.“

Link

Kristjánsson, Jón Egill; et al. (2015): The hydrological cycle response to cirrus cloud thinning

Kristjánsson, Jón Egill; Muri, Helene; Schmidt, Hauke (2015): The hydrological cycle response to cirrus cloud thinning. In Geophys. Res. Lett., pp.[nbsp]n/a-n/a. DOI: 10.1002/2015GL066795[nbsp]

„Using a global climate model, we investigate the hydrological cycle response to ‘cirrus cloud thinning (CCT)’, which is a proposed climate engineering technique that seeks to enhance outgoing longwave radiation. Investigations of the ‘fast response’ in experiments with fixed sea surface temperatures reveal that CCT causes a significant enhancement of the latent heat flux and precipitation. This is due to enhanced radiative cooling of the troposphere, which is opposite to the effect of increased CO2 concentrations.“

Link

FCEA Blog: What of 2C? – Aaron Kressig

„The Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment asked one of its researchers to answer the question: “Who is saying what about the likelihood of staying below a 2 degrees Celsius rise above pre-industrial atmospheric temperatures?” The results beg the question, should researchers and policy-makers be thinking more seriously and openly about climate engineering research?“

Link