Paris, Jan 28: Massive, futuristic schemes to spur
land and sea into sucking up greenhouse gases may help the
fight against global warming but are no substitute for
reducing the pollution itself, scientists said on Wednesday.
Once dismissed as daft or dangerous, some of these
"geo-engineering" projects can be of use in fending off the
juggernaut of climate change, but only if they go hand-in-hand
with cuts in carbon emissions, they warned.
"Geo-engineering" describes large-scale schemes such as
erecting sunshades or mirrors in space, sowing the
stratosphere with white particles or whitewashing building
roofs to reflect sunlight, or scattering iron filings in
the ocean to promote carbon-gobbling algae.
None of these projects has been launched on any
significant scale.
Green groups are deeply suspicious of them, saying the
most ambitious ventures could wreck ecosystems, carry an
astronomical price and postpone tough decisions on reducing
emissions of fossil-fuel gases that cause the problem.
But promoters of geo-engineering are now getting a closer
hearing as political efforts to resolve climate change remain
bogged down.
They argue that geo-engineering, by slightly cooling the
planet, would buy time for humans to get their carbon
pollution under control.
In a paper published today in the journal Atmospheric
Chemistry and Physics Discussions, researchers at Britain`s
University of East Anglia make the first attempt at
calculating the effectiveness of these schemes.
They do not analyse environmental impact, nor do they
estimate the cost.
Bureau Report
