New and promising environmental methods and techniques, primarily negative carbon technology, are working towards a better future for the environment and solving its major problems, including climate change.

1. Carbon Negative Technology
The Carbon Negative Solutions That Remove CO2 From The
Atmosphere
More companies than ever before are making commitments to be carbon neutral
or even carbon negative. Earlier this year, Microsoftcommitted to going carbon
negative by 2030. Swedish retailgiant IKEA made the samepromise along with a
goal that all their products will be "100% circular", meaning fully reusableor
recyclable.
Both 'climate positive'and 'carbon negative' mean the samething: removing CO2
fromthe atmospherein order to make a positive impact on climate change. While
the term carbon negative is established in the U.S., climate positive is gaining
ground in Europe.
Carbon Negative : Can we get there?
https://oke.io/UrWoDxS
Why we need carbon negative solutions

2. Achieving the challenging climate targets set out in the Paris Agreement requires
more than justcutting emissions. For one thing, not all industries or sectors in
society will be able to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Itis challenging to
reduce emissions in agricultureand mobility to net zero and to offsetother
greenhousegas emissions like methane and nitrous oxide. So, to keep the global
temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees higher than pre-industriallevels,
the IPCC has said we mustproactively removeCO2 fromthe atmosphere.
The IEA has consistently said that the global energy transition requires a portfolio
of technologies and measures. Thosefor carbon removalcan be grouped into
three broad categories: nature-based 'carbon sink'solutions, the enhancement of
natural processes, and new technologies. Within these categories individual
approaches areinterlinked in many ways and provide benefits beyond CO2
removal.
Carbon Negative : Can we get there?
https://oke.io/UrWoDxS
Nature-based solutions
One of the simplest ways wecan create carbon sinks is to stop cutting down trees
and encouragereforestation and the seeding of forestin new areas. Simply put,
trees absorb and store carbon but dead trees release it. Approximately 31% of the
earth's land surfaceis forested, but that is down from almost46% in the pre-
industrial era.
Norway has ploughed more than $1 billion into the Amazon Fund, a mechanism
designed to reduce emissions fromdeforestation and forestdegradation of the
Amazon rainforest. Organizations likethe Rainforest Foundation also deliver
concrete results across centralAfrica and Asia/Oceania. There are concerns over
the potential for wildfires to destroy that carbon store, so reforestation alone isn't
a silver bullet and the retention time and safeguarding arenot straightforward.
Carbon Negative : Can we get there?
https://oke.io/UrWoDxS

3. Enhancing natural processes
The natural processes of our planet storecarbon, but we can help the process
along through proactiveland management tools and techniques. Improved land
management could store up to nine billion tonnes of CO₂ each year. Two such
methods include the use of biochar and seaweed.
Managing wasteis a major challenge for all cities. Organic wastefromparks and
gardens can be turned into biochar for useas soil, which minimizes waste while
establishing a new carbon sink. Researchers fromseveralNordic countries have
formed the Nordic Biochar Network to spread knowledgeand experience about
biochar.
Researchers havefound that seaweed plays an important role in permanently
moving CO2 from the atmosphereinto ocean sediments. While better managing
seaweed-denseareas known to be carbon negative can help the climate crisis,
increasing the amount of farmed seaweed could also help to solve the future food
crisis. Itis key though to keep track off the carbon, the retention time and where
it ultimately ends up.
The concept of enhanced weathering also deserves wider consideration.
Weathering erodes rocks over millions of years, washing theminto the oceans
and solidifies CO2 in the process. Enhanced weathering is the process of
pulverizing silicate rocks to bypass the slow weathering process and enjoy the
benefits much faster. Enhanced weathering makes water morealkaline, helping
to counter acidification, while the process can also improvecrop yields and
restoredegraded soils.
This can also be done in industrialprocesses by mineralizing CO2 using, for
example, mafic minerals like Olivine or Basaltic rocks, buttypically 3-10 kg of rock
needs to be moved around for each kg of CO2 saved.
The weathering processes arealso quite slow as pointed out earlier and thus
could become irrelevant for the 30-year timeframefor climate neutrality.
Injecting CO2 into young basaltic rock as undertaken at the CarbFixstoragesite in
Iceland shows much faster reactions and fixation, albeit used to re-inject CO2 and
H2S fromgeothermal heat extraction.

4. Carbon Negative : Can we get there?
https://oke.io/UrWoDxS
New carbon negative technologies
Finally, new technologies to remove CO2 at sourceor fromthe atmospherefor
storageelsewhere are in rapid development.
Carbon capture and storage(CCS) technologies can be used in conjunction with
bioenergy, the burning of biomass for energy, to create a carbon negative
solution. According to the IPCCthis process alonehas the potential to
permanently storegigatonnes of CO2 every year, although this is reliant on
sustainablebiomass availability and the full-scaleimplementation of CCS.
Norway's recentannouncement of the Longship CCS projectis a major step on the
road to full-scaleCCS implementation including CO2 of biogenic origin fromwaste
to energy plants.
Another technological solution that needs further development is the direct-air
capture of CO2. This technology uses chemicals to removeCO2 fromambient air,
which can be stored underground. If used in the production of materials such as
plastics it could be climate neutral, but if the ultimate disposalis in a waste to
energy plant with CCS, it becomes carbon negative.
Further research and development is needed to bring down the costand the
amount of energy needed to power the necessary infrastructurefor the
technology to work at scale. Finally, an exciting new technology to indirectly
remove CO2 fromthe air via seawater is also under development, which could
also help to slow the alarming acidification of the oceans which are increasing at
an alarming rate.
Carbon Negative : Can we get there?
https://oke.io/UrWoDxS
The next steps

5. Of course, it is important to say that none of these carbon removaltechniques
and technologies are an alternative to cutting emissions nor an excuse for slowing
down other measures. But they will inevitably play an important role in a portfolio
of comprehensivesolutions to the climate crisis.
As part of their recent commitment to going carbon negative, Microsoftpledged
to invest $1 billion over the next four years into the technologies needed to
achieve such a shift. "Weunderstand that this is justa fraction of the investment
needed, but our hope is that it spurs moregovernments and companies to invest
in new ways as well," said a company statement.
At present, such solutions experience market failure as they do not produce many
other benefits besides removing CO2 from the atmosphere, obviously a common
good. In order to stimulate the marketdesire, it is important that Governments
and the EU speed up the research and innovation efforts into such solutions.
There is no doubt that such solutions are needed, but it will take more than
investment fromtechnology companies to move the needle and develop these
technologies to work at-scale
Carbon Negative : Can we get there?
https://oke.io/UrWoDxS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------