PARIS: A panel of scientists from the United States is calling for more research into tools for intentionally altering components of Earth’s climate system as a way to forestall or blunt the worst effects of global warming.
Neither of the two broad approaches that the National Research Council (NRC) panel examined in a pair of reports released Tuesday is ready for prime time. But of the two, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is far enough along to benefit from dedicated research-and-development efforts to scale up the techniques and cut their costs.
The other, altering the amount of sunlight that Earth’s surface receives, carries too many unknown, hard-to-quantify risks for it to be more than a topic of additional research – at least for now.
