New science could help solve climate crisis

LONDON (Reuters) – A new science that seeks to fight climate change using methods like giant space mirrors might not work on its own, but when combined with cuts in greenhouse gases it may help reverse global warming, a research report said.

In the report published on Wednesday, researchers at Britain’s University of East Anglia assessed the climate cooling potential of “geoengineering” schemes that also include pumping aerosol into the atmosphere and fertilizing the oceans with nutrients.

“We found that some geoengineering options could usefully complement mitigation, and together they could cool the climate, but geoengineering alone cannot solve the climate problem,” said Professor Tim Lenton, the report’s lead author.

Geoengineering involves large-scale manipulation of the environment in an attempt to combat the potentially devastating effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels.

“Strong mitigation…combined with global-scale air capture and storage, afforestation, and (enhanced CO2 sinks) might be able to bring CO2 back to its pre-industrial level by 2100, thus removing the need for other geoengineering,” the report said.

Reuters