Liberating Energy from Carbon: Introduction to Decarbonization

Abstract

Geoengineering is a set of radical contingency actions to deliberately modify the Earth’s energy balance in order to counteract the adverse impact of human activities on the global ecosystem and climate. The Greenhouse Gas Management (GGM) is one of the main geoengineering strategies aiming at reducing the atmospheric CO2 levels within a reasonable time frame by enhancing an uptake and storage of carbon through a variety of biological (e.g., ocean fertilization) and chemical (e.g., enhanced weathering) engineered systems. Today, geoengineering remains a highly controversial issue; among major concerns are possible unintended planetary-scale adverse ecological impacts of the projects, and the disputable benefits of the geoengineering approach compared to other carbon mitigation strategies. Geoengineering poses acute and novel challenges that would require international cooperation, transparency, and the proactive and effective managing of research. The current status of major GGM geoengineering projects, their technical feasibility and economics, the challenges and risks associated with their global deployment are analyzed in this chapter.