These two views are not necessarily in conflict: atmospheric CO2 concentration is (vagely/roughly) the integral of emissions. So if emissions are basically flat (-0.4%) you'd still see atmospheric levels rise.
There’s too much for abstinence to fix it now. We are going to have to intervene in land management practices to draw down the CO2 we already released. They’ve been trying to figure out how to decarbonize concrete and some of those techniques might eventually lead to net negative or at least closer to neutral.
We can think about capturing AFTER we stop emissions. Emissions can be significantly reduced. All vehicles can be electric, they add storage to the system and can supply power back, which means we can wean off of oil (transportation), coal and natural gas (electricity, heating).
If people stop buying gas cars, and every vehicle bought is EV, it will take 20 years for all vehicles to be EVs. Thats enough to build massive storage just using EVs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50257308
Western countries have high wealth and disposable incomes, they can ban all ICE cars and bring down costs significantly (already cheaper CapEx and cheaper OpEx), accelerating everything else. Ethiopia banned new gas cars in 2024, western countries can do it too.
This is doable in 20 years. All road transport, electricity from fossil fuels. In these 20 years, we can focus on other things and have R&D breakthroughs (maybe zero/low carbon concrete).
Realistically it's easier to stop producing more than sequestering carbon. That's what the only target should be to stop releasing more carbon into the atmosphere as carbon capture etc requires energy which releases more carbon till we reach carbon free energy all form of carbon sequestration is mostly a con to get government contract or by oil and gas companies/countries to keep burning more.
If we reach net 0 carbon, which we won't, we still have the extra carbon we already added. That doesn't just go away. We will have to get to net negative to fix most of this.
Particularly because all the CO2 we dump into the ocean will return to the surface in ocean upwellings once the currents have run a full cycle.
if we get to 0 carbon that would mean we have reached carbon free energy so then using it capture and store carbon would be okay till then any carbon capture apart from growing more tree is pointless
I am for converting back to hydrocarbons for long term storage and use. Ie convert to oil, gas and fertilizer it will be practically be free if its a carbon free energy as that would mean it is either renewables or nuclear fusion.
I'm not talking about putting gas into holes in the ground and then expecting it to not bubble back out and/or kill us. I'm talking about recarbonizing farm land, which we will need anyway to deal with climate change, aforestation, and probably accelerated rock weathering.
It took us 200 years to break it, we'll probably be 300 years fixing it, at which point the ocean will have likely absorbed all it can and started giving it back to us.
The silver lining is that if world population really has peaked and we are on the decline, we can follow the model of Christchurch and The Netherlands and refuse to let people rebuild in the most vulnerable areas. We can return those areas to nature and in some cases, like the Netherlands, use those areas to also improve the chances to survive the next extreme weather event. Every time the a Netherlands declares a moratorium after a flood, their ability to avoid flooding in population centers improves a little bit. And the reforest land which helps a bit with the drawdown (asterisk for methane production, which may represent less carbon in the atmosphere but a greater greenhouse effect)
It’s too late for the pebbles to vote. It’ll take as long as it takes. And it will seem like it will take even longer because we will need to find new physics, chemistry, biology, and manufacturing to solve it.
Electric Cars are the future, and that is speaking as someone who still prefers to drive a petrol / gasoline car. It will be a long 10-20 year replacement cycle. And China is rapidly reducing its CO2 emissions. To the point I won't be surprised if in the future they could advertise to the west about their product being cleanly produced.
Solar and Batteries are advancing fast. To the point it isn't even about being green, it makes zero economic sense not to use it. We aren't that far away from it.
It is going to be a bit of a bumpy road. But we are advancing in the right direction.
Transport is only 25% of emissions. If we converted all planes, trucks, ships etc to electricity tomorrow then emissions would go back to what they were in... 2005.
China emits ~33% of global CO2, they could get 50% of their electricity to be renewable in next 5 - 10 years. When Solar and Batteries ( Semi Solid State Sodium Battery ) catches up for grid, and Electric cars, we are talking about a global reduction of ~20%+ say by 2035.
It is not perfect, but I dont think that is too bad. We should be able to cut 50% globally by 2050 if not earlier. As I believe both the technology and production scale will accelerate in typical Chinese fashion.
And all of that is without any incentives. Just pure economical play.
