Maybe we don’t have to capture so much carbon, study suggests

New technologies and changes in consumer habits could limit the use of controversial carbon capture to fight climate change, new research shows.

Efforts to capture carbon from polluting sources or to filter CO2 out of the air have picked up steam as a way for companies to meet their climate goals. But those strategies are still unproven at a large scale and could come with other unintended consequences. Some environmental advocates also worry that focusing on cleaning up pollution after the fact could lure companies away from transitioning to renewable energy to prevent emissions in the first place.

To stop climate change and meet the goals of the Paris agreement, planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions need to reach net zero around 2050. There’s no way to do that without turning to cleaner energy. Certain industries, however, are considered difficult to decarbonize, meaning they can’t turn to renewable electricity as easily as other sectors to reduce carbon pollution. That includes agriculture, international transport by ship and plane, and heavy industry like steel and cement manufacturing.

That’s where carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is supposed to come in as a way to draw down that leftover pollution from hard-to-decarbonize sectors. A paper published last week, however, pushes industry and policymakers to be more ambitious. There are ways to prevent more of that pollution either by leaning into emerging technological solutions or by encouraging more sustainable consumer habits.

“Are there not measures that can be taken that are tenable, right? That’s the question,” says Wil Burns, co-director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University, who was not involved in the new research.

The authors of a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change last week scoured previous research to identify ways each of those hard-to-abate sectors could cut down their pollution.