The conclusion of the Paris Agreement in 2015, in which almost every nation was committed to reducing their carbon emissions, was supposed to be a turning point in the fight against climate change. But many countries have already fallen behind their goals. Meanwhile emissions worldwide continue to rise.
The only way to catch up is to aggressively pursue an approach that takes advantage of every possible strategy to reduce emissions. Wind and solar energy are usually part of this effort, but it must also include investing heavily in carbon capture, utilization(应用)and storage(CCUS)—a range of technologies that pull carbon dioxide from the air, and transform it into useful materials or store it underground. Although CCUS has been opposed as too expensive and unproved, recent gains have made it far more effective. Improvements such as chemical compounds could drive the cost down from $100 per ton of captured carbon in 2016 to $ 20 per ton by 2025, according to a 2016 article in Science.
Three primary CCUS paths lead to the reduction of carbon emissions: retrofitting(改装)existing power plants; reducing emissions in industries that cannot run on renewable energy; and directly removing carbon from the air. Cutting emissions from existing electric power stations with CCUS could be made more appealing in a future with a circular carbon economy, in which captured carbon could be resold and recycled for other uses—for instance, serving as a raw material for making concrete or plastics.
The basic idea of carbon capture has faced a lot of opposition. Skepticism has come from climate change deniers, who see it as a waste of money, and from passionate supporters of climate action, who fear that it would be used to justify continued reliance on fossil fuels. Both groups are ignoring the recent advances and the opportunity they present. By limiting investment in decarbonization, the world will miss a major avenue for reducing emissions in a variety of industries. CCUS can also create jobs and profits from what was previously only a waste material by creating a larger economy around carbon.
The transition to clean energy has become necessary. But that transition's ability to achieve deep decarbonization will become less effective without this wide range of solutions, which must include CCUS.
