The New Climate Tech
The New Climate Tech - The New York Times
The Morning
Ambitious projects are trying to engineer the atmosphere.
Infusing clouds with sulfur dioxide to block the sun. Vacuuming carbon dioxide out of thin air. Adding iron to the ocean to draw greenhouse gases down to the sea floor. As recently as a few years ago, technologies designed to change Earth’s atmosphere — what is broadly known as geoengineering — were considered too impractical, too expensive and too outlandish to be taken seriously.
But, as I write in a new article, some of these technologies are being deployed. One is already in place.
The effects of climate change are becoming worse. And nations aren’t meeting their collective goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions. The stakes are very real: Last year was the hottest in modern history. Oceans around the world are shockingly warm. Floods, fires and droughts are growing more intense.
So investors and entrepreneurs are trying — sometimes unilaterally — to fix that. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain some of those efforts.
Many scientists and environmentalists worry about the safety and efficacy of geoengineering. And some of the best-funded projects are bankrolled by the very oil and gas companies most responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions. Still, plans to intentionally tinker with the planet’s atmosphere are racing ahead.
Underground bubbles
On a warm winter day last month, I traveled to a massive construction site outside Odessa, Texas. There, Occidental Petroleum is building the world’s largest direct air-capture plant. The company plans to turn it on next year.
The mechanics are relatively straightforward: Giant fans blow air across water that has been treated to absorb carbon dioxide. Occidental then uses chemicals to isolate that CO2, mixes the gas with water and pumps it underground. Extreme subterranean pressure keeps the gas locked away forever.
Occidental told me that most of the carbon dioxide it captures will be sequestered in bedrock, removed from the atmosphere for good. But at least some will be used to extract yet more oil from the ground, creating more of the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet. Earlier this year, I toured a similar factory in Iceland. That one, built by a Swiss company called Climeworks, doesn’t sell any of its CO2 to oil companies.
Other attempts to tweak the climate are still in their infancy. A California start-up claimed to have released sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere in Mexico without permission, hoping to block solar radiation. (Afterward, Mexico imposed a ban on the process.) Researchers in Massachusetts are investigating whether they could generate blooms of phytoplankton that would absorb carbon dioxide and settle on the sea floor.
Who has the power?
Critics of the air-capture plants like those in Texas and Iceland remain skeptical. The projects are enormously expensive and very energy-intensive and snag only a sliver of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Maybe they distract policymakers from the more urgent work of reducing fossil fuel emissions.
Despite these concerns, the market for these ventures is set to boom — from less than $10 billion today to as much as $135 billion by 2040, according to Boston Consulting Group. Occidental is planning to build 100 plants in the coming years, funded in part by $1.2 billion in funding for the technology from the Biden administration. Climeworks wants to build in Kenya, Canada, Europe and Louisiana.
It’s not unusual for a new technology to gain momentum before the major questions about its efficacy, safety and regulation are resolved. Who deserves the right to alter the planet, and what burdens of proof should they first meet?
Right now, there are no international standards governing these new technologies, even though they could affect the whole planet. As one professor of environmental philosophy told me, “We don’t have a great track record of sustained global cooperation.”
For more: Read David’s reporting in Iceland, where carbon capture is a small but growing business.
THE LATEST NEWS
Israel-Hamas War
In Jerusalem, thousands of Israelis
protested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for an early election.
Israeli
troops withdrew from Al-Shifa, a major Gaza hospital, after a two-week battle.
More International News
The mayor of Istanbul is
expected to win re-election. It would be a rebuke of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party, which campaigned against him.
India’s economy has grown in the decade since Narendra Modi was elected prime minister. Many Indians are better off, but wealth gaps have widened.
African migrants have filled worker shortages and
created a new community in a remote mining town in Quebec.
One part of Italy has bucked the nation’s falling birthrate: Bolzano, where parents enjoy
discounted child care and groceries.
Politics
Donald Trump ends many of his rallies with a churchlike ritual. Read more about how he
infuses his movement with Christianity.
Chinese accounts are pretending to be Trump supporters and
spreading misinformation online ahead of November, according to researchers and government officials.
Trump had varied responses to witnesses who testified at his trials: He criticized his former fixer Michael Cohen.
He praised others for loyalty.
New York City
The Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival filled Fifth Avenue with color.
See more outfits.
Residents in Chinatown are angry about efforts to build what could be
the world’s tallest jail there.
A man accused of pushing a stranger in front of a subway train had been in a homeless shelter for people with serious mental illness.
He found little help there.
Other Big Stories
To some, the Francis Scott Key Bridge symbolized Baltimore.
Read reflections about its significance.
A total eclipse crosses the U.S. on April 8. Small towns in its path are preparing to
welcome visitors, The Washington Post reports.
Opinions
The U.S. should work with its adversaries on counterterrorism to prevent attacks like the one in Moscow, Christopher Costa and Colin Clarke write.
Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss nominees for their political April fools.
Here are columns by David French on the rise of religious identity politics and Zeynep Tufekci on Boeing airplane safety.
MORNING READS
Writings on the wall: Landlords used to scrub graffiti off their buildings. Now, they are willing to pay for it.
Ask Vanessa: Can you wear sandals in the office?
Hiking: The app AllTrails has become a beloved guide for both experts and newbies.
Metropolitan Diary: Worst job interview ever?
Lives Lived: Lorraine Graves was a ballerina who starred as a principal dancer for the groundbreaking Dance Theater of Harlem for nearly two decades. She died at 66.
SPORTS
Men’s Final Four: The lineup is set. Alabama will play UConn and Purdue will take on N.C. State.
Elite Eight recap: Purdue beat Tennessee, 72-66, to advance to its first Final Four since 1980. And N.C. State beat Duke, 76-64, to tie a record as the lowest seed to reach the Final Four.
Women’s college basketball: South Carolina is headed to its fourth consecutive Final Four after beating Oregon State, 70-58. More games are tonight, including Iowa v.s L.S.U.
ARTS AND IDEAS
Meaning: The peace sign, which was designed in the 1950s, was once a powerful symbol for antiwar and countercultural movements. Now, for younger generations, the sign is little more than an anodyne lifestyle motif.
“I take one look at the peace sign, and it feels really dated and meaningless,” a 22-year-old college junior told Michael Rock, a designer and academic. “It reminds me of being in elementary school, and this was on everybody’s water bottles or T-shirts.”
Read more about how the sign’s resonance has changed.
More on culture
Beyoncé fans
celebrated the release of “Cowboy Carter,” her latest album, in Nashville. “I’ve never seen so many people that look like me in cowboy hats in my life,” one fan said.
“Oppenheimer,” a movie about the father of the atomic bomb, was released in Japan eight months after its U.S. premiere.
Read Japanese viewers’ reactions.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
Make an easy deli-style egg salad with any leftover hard-boiled eggs.
Work with your hands. It’s good for your brain.
Start composting.
Break up with single-use plastics.
Take our news quiz.
GAMES
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was lollygagged.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.
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An earlier version of this newsletter referred incorrectly to Narendra Modi. He is the prime minister of India, not the president.
How we handle corrections
David Gelles reports on climate change and leads The Times’s Climate Forward newsletter and events series. More about David Gelles
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”