Capturing CO2 from Air: to Keep Global Warming Under 1.5°C, Emissions Must Go Negative, IPCC Says

Soil leads the solutions for negative emissions in a new climate change report.  Soil carbon sequestration was among the cheapest methods with the greatest potential.

The UN's latest global warming report made it clear that if the world is to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, society urgently needs to move away from fossil fuels completely.

But to keep the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, the report says, we'll also have to figure out how to undo some of the damage that's already been done.

"Given our current knowledge, we can't get to 1.5 degrees without removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it," said Kelly Levin, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute.

With 1.5°C of warming just around the corner, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considered several solutions for removing CO2 from the air—some as simple as planting more trees, others as complex as using technology to filter CO2 from the air.  Their practicality and their risks vary considerably.

Some of the most viable options identified by the IPCC are based in the natural world, as opposed to more costly technologies that aren't yet proven on large scales.

Of the options considered, the solution the IPCC found to have both the most potential for reducing CO2 and the lowest costs was what's known as soil carbon sequestration.

Read more at Capturing CO2 from Air:  to Keep Global Warming Under 1.5°C, Emissions Must Go Negative, IPCC Says