Cutting CO2 Emissions is Necessary but Not Sufficient

Former NASA climate scientist James Hansen and colleagues recently published an article that lays out why cutting CO2 emissions ais necessary but is no longer sufficient to reduce concentrations of greenhouse gasses (GHG) to acceptable levels.  Among their findings is that “…large CO2 extraction from the air is needed and a halt of growth of non-CO2 climate impacts to achieve the temperature stabilization…” They rightly point out that developed nations have an obligation to assist those nations since they haven’t contributed much to the problem but bear a disproportionate share of its impacts.

They also point to a role for demand-side changes that provide GHG mitigation. For example, reducing meat and dairy production is needed to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture.  Other agriculture and land use changes (in addition to changes in our diets), include reducing food waste and changes in wood use “…have substantial mitigation potential, but they remain under-researched and poorly quantified.”


Hansen and his co-authors note that unless rapid emission reductions are initiated soon, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere using demand-side strategies will require more extreme changes to current agricultural and forestry practices. They also sounded a warning that if “large” [emphasis added] fossil fuel emissions continue, deamnd-side methods of removing existing CO2 from the atmosphere will require more costly industrial scale CO2 extraction.

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