For the first time, a study maps safe areas that can practically be used for underground carbon storage, and estimates that using them all would only cut warming by 0.7°C. The result is almost ten times lower than previous estimates of around 6°C, which considered the total global potential for geological storage, including in risky zones, where storing carbon could trigger earthquakes and contaminate drinking water supplies. The researchers say the study shows that geological storage is a scarce, finite resource, and warn that countries must use it in a highly targeted way.
  • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    5·
    3 months ago

    0.7°C alone isn’t enough, but it would still probably save several hundred million human lives, possibly a billion or two.

    The difference between 4.1 °C an 3.4 °C is not meaningless.
    But yeah, if some people have been complacent because “we don’t need to save energy, we can just hide all the carbon underground”, this of course invalidates their justification.

    • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      Yeah. 0.7°C is huge. The headline is weird. The article explains it a little better, that that’s the global total if every single potential area were used to its full currently known potential. Basically it’s a significantly less promising solution than was previously believed. But yeah they should have phrased it differently.