麻豆淫院

Environmental activists are teaming up with fresh faces in Congress to , a bundle of policies that would fight climate change while creating new jobs and reducing inequality. Not all of the activists agree on what those policies ought to be.

, including Greenpeace, the Center for Biological Diversity and 350, recently laid out their vision in a letter they sent to U.S. lawmakers. They warned that they "vigorously oppose" several strategies, including the use of 鈥� a process that can trap excess carbon pollution that's already warming the Earth, and .

In our view, as a who studies global justice and an , this blanket opposition is an unfortunate mistake. Based on the , and the risks in relying on land sinks like and alone to take up the excess carbon, we believe that carbon capture and storage could be a powerful tool for and even rectifying .

Global inequality

We think the U.S. and other rich countries should accelerate negative emissions research for two reasons.

First, they can afford it. Second, they have a as they burned a disproportionate amount of the carbon causing climate change today. Global warming is poised to hit the least-developed countries, including dozens that were , the hardest.

Consider this: The entire African continent than the U.S., Russia or Japan.

Yet Africa is likely to experience climate change impacts . Some African regions are already experiencing warming increases at . Coastal and island nations like Bangladesh, Madagascar and the Marshall Islands face .

But the world's the necessary research, development and governance for negative emissions technologies.

Bad track record with coal

What explains the objections from climate justice advocates?

The U.S. has heavily funded to drastically reduce greenhouse gas since .

Those efforts have not paid off, partly because of economics. and than coal for generating electricity.

Only a handful of in the U.S., are routine. The everywhere, with few exceptions.

In addition, carbon capture with coal has a . The is the . It ended in when state power authorities ordered the plant operator to give up on this technology and .

Other uses

Carbon capture and storage, however, isn't just for fossil-fuel-burning power plants. It can work with , such as steel, cement and chemical plants and .

Then, one of two things can happen. The carbon can be turned into new products, such as , , or even .

Carbon can also be stored permanently if it is injected , where geologists believe it can stay put for centuries.

Until now, a common use for captured carbon is . Burning that petroleum, however, can make climate change worse.

Going carbon negative

This technology may potentially also 鈥� as long as it's designed right.

One example is what's called , where farm residues or crops like trees or grasses are grown to be burned to generate electricity. Carbon is separated out and stored at the power plants where this happens.

If the , with cultivation, harvesting and transport done in low-carbon or carbon-neutral ways, this process can produce what scientists call , with more carbon removed than released. Another possibility involves from the air.

Scientists point out that bioenergy with carbon capture and storage could require for growing biofuels to burn. And climate advocates are concerned that both approaches could pave the way for oil, gas and coal companies and big industries to simply instead of phasing out fossil fuels.

Natural solutions

Every pathway to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the most recent U.N. report projected the use of carbon removal approaches.

Planting more trees, and can also reduce atmospheric carbon. We believe the natural solutions many environmentalists might prefer are crucial. But soaking up excess carbon through afforestation on a massive scale could .

To be sure, not all environmentalists are writing off carbon capture and storage.

The Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council, along with many other big green organizations, , which objected not just to carbon capture and storage but also to , emissions trading and through .

Rather than leave carbon removal technologies out of the Green New Deal, we suggest that more environmentalists consider their potential for removing carbon that has already been emitted. We believe these approaches could potentially create jobs, foster economic development and reduce inequality on a global scale 鈥� as long as they are meaningfully accountable to people in the world's poorest nations.

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