If you follow the money, investors are betting big that carbon removal technology will be the way forward. This is where using carbon removal technology-vacuuming CO2 straight out of the atmosphere for safe storage-comes in. With so much carbon in the air, reducing emissions is critical, but not enough to meet climate goals. In 2021, the global average level of carbon dioxide set a new record high at 414.72 parts per million. Every year about 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases get released into the air, with carbon dioxide being the main culprit, making up 76% of the mix. Will it be enough to avert a climate disaster? Some say no. Net-zero means greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere cancel out greenhouse gases emitted from fossil fuels and industrial processes. This goal requires countries to act now (or, more accurately, yesterday) by reducing emissions to net-zero by 2050. So what’s the plan? The Paris Agreement wants to make sure earth absolutely does not get 2 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial levels-and ideally no more than 1.5 degrees. Without drastic measures, researchers say, the climate consequences will be much, much worse. Science says a hotter globe triggers extreme weather events: more fires, bigger floods, stronger hurricanes. But since the Industrial Revolution, the global temperature has gone up by about 1 degree Celsius because greenhouse gas emissions (such as carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere trap heat like a blanket. In the late 1800s, before the Wright Brothers took off, earth’s annual average temperature was about 13.7 degrees Celsius.
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