Chasing Carbon Unicorns

https://eos.org/articles/chasing-carbon-unicorns

Source:  By Rishika Pardikar, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: According to a new report, net zero targets many governments are pursuing are distractions from the urgent need to drastically reduce carbon emissions In the past few months, many governments have announced net zero carbon emission targets. These targets update the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) at the heart of the Paris Agreement. ...Net zero describes the goal of removing as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as is emitted. ...The net zero targets outlined by NDCs and corporations ...include nature-based solutions like planting more trees to sequester carbon, developing carbon capture and storage technologies, and investing in carbon offsets (largely defined as a reduction in carbon emissions made by one party to compensate for emissions made by another). But net zero targets described by NDCs and businesses are “deceptions” and “distractions,” according to a new report by Friends of the Earth International (FoEI). ...Sometimes the [net zero] targets do not aim to reduce emissions, but compensate for them with offsets. ...A foundational fallacy in net zero targets, the FoEI report claims, rests in a misrepresentation of the carbon cycle ...divided into two parts based on timescale. One is the biogenic cycle, in which carbon circulates between the atmosphere, land, and oceans. The other is the slower, nonbiogenic cycle in which carbon circulates between fossil fuels stored underground and the atmosphere. The biogenic cycle can occur within hours, days, and years. The nonbiogenic cycle takes hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years. Net zero targets conflate the two cycles, the FoEI report claims. Targets assume all the carbon that’s already circulating in the atmosphere as well as all the carbon that will be emitted by fossil fuels can be safely and effectively sequestered. ...We are putting significant stress on all these pools by pushing them to take up additional fossil CO2.…We cannot just stuff the geosphere (i.e., CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels) into the biosphere,” the report says....