Congress has prioritized scrubbing the atmosphere of carbon dioxide as a way to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, earmarking $447 million for carbon removal research and development in the stimulus bill signed into law.
But climate scientists and decarbonization advocates disagree about the need for such a program, and the extent to which the money Congress appropriated for it will make a difference for scaling up carbon capture technology.
“The gigaton-scale of carbon removal doesn’t really make sense until emissions have been squished down toward zero,” said David Keith, a Harvard University applied physics professor who has studied ...