Cleaning up carbon emissions

Governments are torn between two seemingly contradictory goals. On the one hand, most major economies have committed to slashing carbon emissions and even to move to “net zero” emissions within the next few decades. However, governments are also desperate to bring down soaring energy costs, which are feeding into a cost-of-living crisis. In this context, refusing to take advantage of the remaining reserves of fossil fuels seems like a luxury few can afford.

Carbon caption and storage (CCS) technologies could offer a way to square these competing priorities. As the name implies, CCS involves trapping carbon emissions and locking them away so that they don’t enter the atmosphere, and even in some cases reusing them. Nonetheless, the entire principle of CCS is controversial. The idea of using carbon reduction to eliminate net emissions sits uneasily with many environmentalists, who prefer to focus on reducing emissions in the first place.

“If we do climate change mitigation and nature-based solutions correctly, there will be no need for direct carbon capture technologies,” says Gabriela Herculano, chief executive and co-founder of fintech firm iClima Earth. A report by climate group One Earth concluded that carbon capture is “risky and expensive” compared to alternative approaches. Herculano suggests developing renewables,