Removing carbon dioxide is not the current climate solution - we need to change our minds

David Ho, a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, takes aim at carbon dioxide (CO2) removal technologies in an article for the journal Nature. He says he has reviewed dozens of proposals for these technologies and, with countries like the US investing in early-stage demonstration projects, supports "the need for long-term development of CO2 removal methods." But he continues: “Humanity has never removed a pollutant from the atmosphere on a global, continental or even regional scale – we've always just shut down the source and let nature do the cleanup….We have to be prepared for CDR to fail and we we will have to rely on the environment to stabilize atmospheric CO2 for thousands of years. This is another argument for rapid decarbonisation."

David Ho, Nature,