Using trees, soil, farming techniques, the ocean and direct air capture can all reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and help achieve climate goals. Many World Economic Forum partners and technology pioneers are working in this space, including Climeworks.
Direct air capture technology is a form of carbon dioxide (CO2) removal that takes CO2 from ambient, or still, air. The separated CO2 can then be permanently stored deep underground, or it can be converted into products.
Scientists use the term “carbon sinks” to refer to places where carbon is stored away from the atmosphere. Plants constantly exchange carbon with the atmosphere. Plants absorb carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and much of this carbon dioxide is then stored in roots, permafrost, grasslands, and forests.
1) Trees and Forests
Plants remove carbon dioxide from the air naturally, and trees are especially good at storing CO2 removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis.
The easiest way to do this is by planting new forests (afforestation) or restoring old ones (reforestation). Other enhanced land management practices can help, as can new technologies that suck CO2 out of the air (“direct air capture”), or prevent it from leaving smokestacks (“carbon capture and storage”).
You can lower levels of CO2 indoors by increasing ventilation and controlling the sources of CO2. using mechanical ventilation strategies. You can find more information on how to use both natural and mechanical ventilation to improve indoor air quality.
Other strong bases such as soda lime, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, and lithium hydroxide are able to remove carbon dioxide by chemically reacting with it. In particular, lithium hydroxide was used aboard spacecraft, such as in the Apollo program, to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Prominent Methods for Carbon Removal:
Afforestation/Reforestation- planting massive new forests. Soil Carbon Sequestration- using no-till agriculture and other practices to increase the amount of carbon stored in soils. Biochar- creating charcoal and burying it or plowing it into fields.
Air Purifiers Don't Remove CO2
Unfortunately common air filters do not remove CO2 from the air. Most air purifiers use HEPA filters and activated carbon filters. HEPA filters remove particles. Activated carbon filters remove some gas pollutants.
Many of the key methods of controlling carbon dioxide in your home involve ventilation. This can range from simply cracking open a window or leaving doors ajar, to installing air conditioning or a ridiculous amount of plants (you need more than you think).
Forests provide one of the most well-known ways to naturally remove carbon in the atmosphere. Trees photosynthesize and absorb carbon as they grow, and forests remove an estimated 15.6 billion metric tonnes of carbon each year.
How do carbon filters trap gases? Activated carbon traps gaseous molecules from the air via adsorption. This is different from absorption. A good example would be water being absorbed by a sponge, where the water fills the spaces inside of the sponge.
Recovering and protecting soil has the potential to sequester 5.5 billion tons of CO2. Gardeners can protect and replenish soil by leaving perennials up during the winter, mulching, composting and minimizing tillage. These garden practices add organic matter to the soil, creating habitat for carbon-storing microbes.
Indeed, thee bamboo absorbs 5 times more greenhouse gases and produces 35% more oxygen than an equivalent volume of trees! It has a very important CO2 retention capacity since one hectare of bamboo grove can capture up to 60 tons of CO2 each year. And these are not the only benefits of bamboo!
Land-based methods include afforestation, reforestation, agricultural practices that sequester carbon in soils (carbon farming), bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and direct air capture combined with storage. There are also CDR methods that use oceans and other water bodies.
Phytoplankton are the main reason the ocean is one of the biggest carbon sinks. These microscopic marine algae and bacteria play a huge role in the world's carbon cycle - absorbing about as much carbon as all the plants and trees on land combined.
The main source of carbon is coal, which is the cheapest fossil fuel. Coal can be turned into gases and liquids, which can be used as fuel or processed into chemicals to make other products. Therfore, coal is the main source of carbon and this is a very important source of fuel till date.
Natural processes, such as photosynthesis by plants, absorption by the oceans, and geological processes, naturally remove CO2. Artificial techniques include carbon capture and storage (CCS), afforestation and reforestation, direct air capture (DAC), ocean fertilization, and soil carbon sequestration.
In general, outdoor levels of CO2 are much much lower than indoor levels. That means, opening windows will typically release CO2 from your room to the outside.
These may include headaches, dizziness, restlessness, a tingling or pins or needles feeling, difficulty breathing, sweating, tiredness, increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, coma, asphyxia, and convulsions.
Direct air capture (DAC) involves direct removal of diluted carbon dioxide from ambient air via chemical bonding. Carbon dioxide is removed from ambient air by contact with a basic solution (chemical liquid solvents) or a basic modified surface (chemical solid sorbents).
By adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, people are supercharging the natural greenhouse effect, causing global temperature to rise.