You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The UN’s , released on Monday, offered a stark reminder that removing massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be essential to prevent the gravest dangers of global warming. But it also underscored that the necessary technologies barely exist—and will be tremendously difficult to deploy. Global temperatures will continue to rise through midcentury no matter what we do at this point, according to the first installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report. How much hotter it gets, however,...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The UN’s , released on Monday, offered a stark reminder that removing massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be essential to prevent the gravest dangers of global warming. But it also underscored that the necessary technologies barely exist—and will be tremendously difficult to deploy. Global temperatures will continue to rise through midcentury no matter what we do at this point, according to the first installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report. How much hotter it gets, however,...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Trapped inside a long glass tube in a ground-floor lab at Harvard University is a miniature copy of the stratosphere. When I visited Frank Keutsch in the fall of 2019, he walked me down to the lab, where the tube, wrapped in gray insulation, ran the length of a bench in the back corner. By filling it with the right combination of gases, at particular temperatures and pressures, Keutsch and his colleagues had simulated the conditions some 20 kilometers above Earth’s surface. In testing how various chemicals react in this rarefied air, the team...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Trapped inside a long glass tube in a ground-floor lab at Harvard University is a miniature copy of the stratosphere. When I visited Frank Keutsch in the fall of 2019, he walked me down to the lab, where the tube, wrapped in gray insulation, ran the length of a bench in the back corner. By filling it with the right combination of gases, at particular temperatures and pressures, Keutsch and his colleagues had simulated the conditions some 20 kilometers above Earth’s surface. In testing how various chemicals react in this rarefied air, the team...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.In his new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill Gates lays out what it will really take to eliminate the greenhouse-gas emissions driving climate change. The Microsoft cofounder, who is now cochair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and chair of the investment fund , sticks to that we’ll need numerous energy breakthroughs to have any hope of cleaning up all parts of the economy and the poorest parts of the world. The bulk of the book surveys the technologies needed to slash emissions in “hard to solve” sectors like steel, cement,...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.In his new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill Gates lays out what it will really take to eliminate the greenhouse-gas emissions driving climate change. The Microsoft cofounder, who is now cochair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and chair of the investment fund , sticks to that we’ll need numerous energy breakthroughs to have any hope of cleaning up all parts of the economy and the poorest parts of the world. The bulk of the book surveys the technologies needed to slash emissions in “hard to solve” sectors like steel, cement,...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Scientists have long seen lithium-metal batteries as an ideal technology for energy storage, leveraging the lightest metal on the periodic table to deliver cells jam-packed with energy. But researchers and companies have tried and failed for decades to produce affordable, rechargeable versions that didn’t have a nasty habit of catching on fire. Then earlier this year Jagdeep Singh, the chief executive of QuantumScape, claimed that the heavily funded, stealth Silicon Valley company had cracked the key technical challenges. He added that VW...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Scientists have long seen lithium-metal batteries as an ideal technology for energy storage, leveraging the lightest metal on the periodic table to deliver cells jam-packed with energy. But researchers and companies have tried and failed for decades to produce affordable, rechargeable versions that didn’t have a nasty habit of catching on fire. Then earlier this year Jagdeep Singh, the chief executive of QuantumScape, claimed that the heavily funded, stealth Silicon Valley company had cracked the key technical challenges. He added that VW...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The good news: US greenhouse-gas emissions are on track to fall 9% this year, marking the lowest levels of climate pollution in at least three decades, according to . The bad news: The dramatic decline is almost entirely attributable to the pandemic-driven economic downturn, not to any fundamental and lasting shifts in our policies, behaviors, and practices. BNEF estimates that without covid-19, emissions would have been just 1% lower in 2020, primarily due to the continuing shift away from coal use. That suggests emissions will sharply...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The good news: US greenhouse-gas emissions are on track to fall 9% this year, marking the lowest levels of climate pollution in at least three decades, according to . The bad news: The dramatic decline is almost entirely attributable to the pandemic-driven economic downturn, not to any fundamental and lasting shifts in our policies, behaviors, and practices. BNEF estimates that without covid-19, emissions would have been just 1% lower in 2020, primarily due to the continuing shift away from coal use. That suggests emissions will sharply...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.On a scorching day this August, Caleb Woodall wielded his shovel like a spear, stabbing it into the hardened crust of an asbestos-filled pit near Coalinga, California. Woodall, a graduate student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, was digging out samples from an asbestos mine that’s been shuttered since 1980, a Superfund site on the highest peak in the state’s Diablo Range. He extracted pounds of the material from several locations across San Benito Mountain, shoveled them into Ziploc bags, and shipped them to a pair of labs...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.On a scorching day this August, Caleb Woodall wielded his shovel like a spear, stabbing it into the hardened crust of an asbestos-filled pit near Coalinga, California. Woodall, a graduate student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, was digging out samples from an asbestos mine that’s been shuttered since 1980, a Superfund site on the highest peak in the state’s Diablo Range. He extracted pounds of the material from several locations across San Benito Mountain, shoveled them into Ziploc bags, and shipped them to a pair of labs...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The world is increasingly banking on green hydrogen fuel to fill some of the critical missing pieces in the clean-energy puzzle. US presidential candidate Joe Biden’s climate plan calls for a research program to that’s cheap enough to fuel power plants within a decade. Likewise, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union that rely on it to accelerate greenhouse gas reductions in the power, transportation, or industrial sectors. Meanwhile, a growing number of companies around the world , or exploring its potential ,...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The world is increasingly banking on green hydrogen fuel to fill some of the critical missing pieces in the clean-energy puzzle. US presidential candidate Joe Biden’s climate plan calls for a research program to that’s cheap enough to fuel power plants within a decade. Likewise, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union that rely on it to accelerate greenhouse gas reductions in the power, transportation, or industrial sectors. Meanwhile, a growing number of companies around the world , or exploring its potential ,...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.In the depths of a downturn that has wiped out millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in wealth, a wide range of voices in the US are calling for a green stimulus to kick-start growth and lay the foundation for a more sustainable economy. That sentence could have been written a decade ago as easily as today. In 2009, amid skyrocketing unemployment and a crippled economy, President Barack Obama signed the $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included some $90 billion for clean-tech projects and the creation of “green...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.In the depths of a downturn that has wiped out millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in wealth, a wide range of voices in the US are calling for a green stimulus to kick-start growth and lay the foundation for a more sustainable economy. That sentence could have been written a decade ago as easily as today. In 2009, amid skyrocketing unemployment and a crippled economy, President Barack Obama signed the $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included some $90 billion for clean-tech projects and the creation of “green...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.A pair of palm-tree-fringed coves form two narrow notches, about a quarter of a mile apart, along the shoreline of an undisclosed island somewhere in the Caribbean. After a site visit in early March, researchers with the San Francisco nonprofit Project Vesta determined that the twin inlets provided an ideal location to study an obscure method of capturing the carbon dioxide driving climate change. Later this year, Project Vesta plans to spread a green volcanic mineral known as olivine, ground down to the size of sand particles, across one of...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.A pair of palm-tree-fringed coves form two narrow notches, about a quarter of a mile apart, along the shoreline of an undisclosed island somewhere in the Caribbean. After a site visit in early March, researchers with the San Francisco nonprofit Project Vesta determined that the twin inlets provided an ideal location to study an obscure method of capturing the carbon dioxide driving climate change. Later this year, Project Vesta plans to spread a green volcanic mineral known as olivine, ground down to the size of sand particles, across one of...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The global effort to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus has stalled much the global economy, setting up an unintended experiment on the impact on carbon emissions. China’s GDP may have (on a ). The US’s GDP could drop anywhere from 30% to 50% by summer. And Britain’s economic output by 25% this quarter. The ardent hope is that economies will bounce back later in the year as the pandemic recedes, but annual output is still likely to decline in many nations. US GPD, for instance, may fall about 5%, . So what’s all that going to add up to...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The global effort to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus has stalled much the global economy, setting up an unintended experiment on the impact on carbon emissions. China’s GDP may have (on a ). The US’s GDP could drop anywhere from 30% to 50% by summer. And Britain’s economic output by 25% this quarter. The ardent hope is that economies will bounce back later in the year as the pandemic recedes, but annual output is still likely to decline in many nations. US GPD, for instance, may fall about 5%, . So what’s all that going to add up to...WW…