"Restoring global forests where they occur naturally could potentially capture an additional 226 gigatons of planet-warming carbon, equivalent to about a third of the amount that humans have released since the beginning of the Industrial Era, according to a new study published on Monday in the journal Nature."
Bill Spindle of Cipher reports on the challenges of carbon markets. “As COP28 approaches, the industry is attempting a major reboot. After years of intense activity by dozens of study groups and implementation committees, the carbon trading industry has launched fresh initiatives to raise the quality of offsets and codify what claims buyers can credibly...
"Arzeda, which raised a $33 million Series B round of venture funding in March 2022, doesn’t just help companies with discovery. It’s also a co-development partner. It has already worked with Unilever to design, engineer and test the enzymes in real-world testing quantities. The next step will be to scale production of the enzymes and help commercialize them. 'We are getting better and better at the design with every undertaking,' said Arzeda CEO Alexandre Zanghellini."
Reducing wasteful and redundant government spending and modernizing regulations will lower borrowing costs for companies and make clean energy more competitive.
"The declaration is the latest sign of shifting sentiment toward nuclear power, which doesn’t produce carbon dioxide emissions, but has often been criticized over the waste it generates, the cost of building plants and potential security issues. Support has gained traction especially as clean back-up for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. The countries will also commit to new technologies, such as small modular reactors."
"Despite roiling the region politically, the war between Israel and Hamas doesn’t threaten supplies directly. That would change if the war were to spread or expand into areas housing the infrastructure—production facilities, tankers and pipelines—that enables the flow of oil and gas. About 21 million barrels of oil pass through the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz daily, along with substantial amounts of liquefied natural gas. Since the U.S. shale revolution, the bulk of those supplies now head to Asian markets."
"A deal is hard to reach because the legitimate climate ambition of a rapid end to burning fossil fuel runs into the equally legitimate reality of fossil dependence. As Mr Cohen observes, 'You can wish fossil fuels away, but they still comprise 80% of world energy supply and are growing.' A new scenario from the IEA, a global forecaster, for achieving net-zero emissions envisions a significant amount of fossil-fuel use even in 2050 (albeit at much lower levels than today), making a mockery of talk of rapid phase-out."
"'What the department put out is really barely a drop in the bucket compared to the level of ambition and the size of the challenge that we see,' said Matthew Mailloux, a policy adviser at the conservative clean energy group ClearPath, in an interview. 'We would certainly hope that DOE, either through [the final rule] or a future rulemaking, would broaden the number and types of technology that are eligible for this more predictable process.'"
"The reason why the CRP is storing less carbon in soil than if the acres were placed randomly has to do with where program acres are concentrated. The Southern Great Plains have a disproportionately high amount of CRP acres, compared to the rest of the country, and the 'coarse-textured soils' in this area store carbon poorly."
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