Technical topics

Background

The world has not been as warm as it is now for a millennium or more. The three warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998; 19 of the warmest 20 since 1980. Most of the scientists believe that this is due to greenhouse effect where CO₂ and other green house gases trap the Sun's radiation within the troposphere, the lower atmosphere. The main reason for the increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere is burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas to produce energy.

If current way of energy production continues, we will raise atmospheric CO₂ concentrations to double pre-industrial levels during this century. That will probably be enough to raise global temperatures by around 2°C to 5°C. Increased temperatures mean that more melting glaciers, strong hurricanes, increased melting of Arctic sea ice, rising sea levels, reduced biodiversity. The bottom line is that we will need to cut CO₂ emissions by 70% to 80% simply to stabilise atmospheric CO₂ concentrations - and thus temperatures.

How to solve the problem?

There are several ways to decrease the CO₂ emissions like:

-improving the efficiency of energy production and use

-developing renewable non-carbon fuels like wind, solar, tidal wave

-implementing CO₂ capture units to fossil fuels plants/industrial plants to prevent the CO₂ emissions while using fossil fuels

-decreasing energy consumption

What are the challanges

As listed above there are several ways to decrease the emissions but are they all needed? Could we implement just some of them? How much can we decrease CO₂ emission by installing CO₂ capture units to fossil fuel power stations? Will the public accept this? Is the technology ready? What are the environmental impacts related to CO₂ capture?