Enzymes and the Fight Against Climate Change: Carbon Capture
Author: John Cumbers
It’s clear that we can no longer avoid the impacts of climate change — we’re already experiencing the economic, societal, and ecosystem impacts of extreme weather events, rising temperatures, and melting ice caps. Although scientists and governments have been warning us for decades about the dangers of the unbridled release of industrial carbon into the atmosphere, the global average atmospheric carbon dioxide hit a new record high of 414.72 ppm in 2021.
It is now evident that we’ve moved from trying to stop climate change to trying to minimize its impacts. To do this, we must reach carbon negative status by the latter half of this century. Achieving this goal will be impossible without efficient carbon capture and storage (CCS). Currently, CCS captures 40 million tons of carbon annually.
This might sound like a big number, but it's only a mere 4% of the 1000 billion tons that must be captured to meet climate targets by 2030 as laid out in the Paris Agreement. That’s a huge deficit to make up in only 7 years. A purposeful, ambitious combination of innovation, policy, and financial backing is the only way to make sure we don’t drop the ball again when it comes to protecting our planet.