Bets on Speculative Carbon Capture Tech Ignore Today’s Solutions

The first step in reducing the risks of climate change is cutting carbon emissions. The world hit a notable milestone on that front, with global energy-related emissions likely peaking last year, according to a recent BloombergNEF report.

Now, the world’s carbon pollution is likely to begin a long, inexorable decline over the coming decades. But there’s a catch: Emissions almost certainly won’t fall fast enough to limit global warming to 2C, let alone meet the 1.5C target set in the Paris Agreement.

Increasingly, hitting that target looks like it will require the world to turn to technologies that can ...