This talk is co-hosted with the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture.
About the Seminar:
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and removing CO2 are both essential to slowing the pace of global warming. Recent progress on the decarbonization of the energy and transportation sectors has resulted in emissions reductions, though much work remains to meet global targets. In contrast, scalable, verifiable, additional, and durable carbon dioxide removal approaches are wholly lacking. Trees have been the principal approach to offsetting emissions; however, this solution has been controversial and lacking in efficacy, especially under changing climate conditions. New agricultural practices, such as no-till and cover cropping, have also yielded mixed results, which are challenging to verify and subject to reversals. An alternative “natural climate solution” involves the addition or rock dust fines to agricultural soil, mimicking the natural weathering process that consumes atmospheric CO2 and stabilizes Earth’s climate over millions of years. This approach offers durability – the carbon removed is very stable – and is additional to existing practices, plus it repurposes mining byproduct for good use. However, many questions remain over the efficacy of enhanced weathering as a billion-tonne CO2 solution, despite the excitement over this technology. This presentation will overview the state of scientific understanding on the enhanced weathering process by citing results from field trials, greenhouse studies, and modeling work. The pace of the research is advancing rapidly; however, whether enhanced weathering will achieve its purported ambition is an open scientific question filled with uncertainty. It is critical that public-private partnerships led by science evolve toward data transparency for enhanced weathering to emerge as a trusted source of carbon in the marketplace.
About the Series:
Over the last twelve years, the Yale School of the Environment has held a weekly seminar series, called BIOMES, which has been the School’s flagship forum for bringing cutting-edge research and impactful work to the community. BIOMES stands for ‘Bridging Issues & Optimizing Methods in Environmental Studies”
The series is a community-sourced and student-led effort designed to bring different perspectives to YSE’s main stage.