Carbon Capture, the Vacuum Cleaner the Climate Needs

We humans are all too good at putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Can we come up with a way to vacuum it out? Scientists, engineers and governments are focusing on technologies that capture carbon to buy time as the global economy tries to kick the fossil-fuel habit. But as predictions of the climate’s trajectory grow more dire, the most authoritative studies are concluding that large-scale carbon removal -- enough to massively reduce absolute carbon levels, not just lower the rate of increase -- is humanity’s best hope of avoiding calamity. Current technology is a long way from being able to help.

Don’t laugh. Trees are the original carbon scrubbers. A group of scientists wrote that including "natural climate solutions” -- mainly reforestation, or planting trees -- among other measures could produce 37 percent of the cuts needed by 2030 to put the world on track to meet the goal of the 2015 international Paris agreements, which is to limit warming to 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above mid-19th century levels. One catch: That much tree-planting might require high-quality land three times the size of India.