Climate change: In a major study, IPCC experts will look into carbon removal

As they assemble to finalise a critical report, UN scientists are likely to include technology for removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will explore this suggestion as one of many options over the next two weeks (IPCC).

Government officials from around the world will also be in attendance, and each line of the summary report will need to be approved. It will be released on April 4th.

This new study will be the third of the IPCC’s three major reports released in the last eight months. The last two focused on the causes and effects of climate change, whereas this one will concentrate on mitigation, or what we can do to mitigate it.

Tree planting and agriculture, as well as more advanced technology options that use massive machines to extract carbon from the air, are likely to be included in the report’s considerations.

They’ll also consider integrated techniques, such as using land to grow crops that can be used for energy while the carbon is trapped and buried.

The outcome of the complex negotiations with government representatives from 195 countries, which will be released in two weeks, will determine what appears in the summary for policymakers.

To agree on the final language, researchers and officials will go over the summary line by line.

There are some fears that the conflict in Ukraine may have an impact on the meeting, which will include delegates from both Russia and Ukraine.

Short-term steps that countries can take in the remaining years of this decade to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius this century will receive a lot of attention.

This was estimated in 2018 to require halving emissions by 2030, but, following the epidemic and the expected ramping up of fossil fuel use in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict, the scale of emissions reductions may need to be revised upwards.

Despite this, the study is likely to emphasise that if immediate action is taken, the worst effects of climate change can be averted.