The climate emergency needs an effective solution. Scores of leading researchers across the globe are racing against time to find a way out of the trouble. Human activities-led climate change is intensifying natural disasters and elevating global average temperatures.
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has been reporting on global heating for years. It recently noted 2023 as the hottest year on record and later said the same about January, February and March 2024. The ongoing El Nino phenomenon is also a key contributor.
Trees are vital removers of emissions. But …
In the meantime, scientists have created a porous material they believe can suck out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere faster than trees. These molecules could be the key to solving society’s biggest challenges by storing emissions responsible for the climate crisis.
Capturing carbon could slow and even reverse the level of emissions, but more development is needed for the technology to be used at scale. Dr Marc Little, co-leader of the research, described it as an “exciting discovery”.
Planting trees is majorly treated as an effective method to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. But scientists have been concerned about its speed, leading to the need of a human intervention – like human-made molecules – to address the problem better.
Stop emitting CO2. But that’s not sufficient
Dr Little said: “Direct air capture of carbon dioxide is increasingly important because even when we stop emitting carbon dioxide, there is still going to be a huge need to capture previous emissions that are already in the environment,” reported The National.
The study published in the journal Nature Synthesis involved researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, University of Liverpool, Imperial College London, the University of Southampton and East China University of Science and Technology.
