The Bright Side: How crushed stone could help fight climate change
Sprinkling crushed rock across farmlands has been a new approach to combat climate change worldwide and some projects are already selling carbon credits from it. The technique called Enhanced Rock Weathering aims to speed up the natural process that occurs when rain falls on rocks and locks away carbon dioxide from the air or soil as eventually limestone.
From sugar plantations in Brazil to tea estates in India, crushed rock is being sprinkled across large stretches of farmland globally in a novel bid to combat climate change.
The technique is called Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) and aims to speed up the natural capture and storage of carbon dioxide – a planet-warming greenhouse gas.
It is potentially big business with tech giants, airlines and fast fashion firms lining up to buy carbon credits from ERW projects to “offset” or cancel out their own emissions.
Read moreChemical-free farming brings life back to rural France
What is ERW?
ERW aims to turbocharge a natural geological process called weathering.
ERW is still a fairly new technology and there are questions about how much carbon it can remove.
Read more on FRANCE 24 English
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