Carbon Capture and Storage

Last evening I went St Paul's Cathedral to hear Jeffrey Sachs in conversation with Nicholas Sagovsky, who is Canon theologian at Westminster Abbey. Encouragingly, a couple of thousand people turned up to hear them debate sustainable development, and Sachs argue that there is still hope for saving the planet, principally because we have so far only scratched the surface of the potential remedies which could be found through the application of evolving technologies and human ingenuity.

In practical terms, Sachs argued that it's most unlikely that we will be able to prevent the continued burning of fossil fuels, especially in China and India, where there are centuries worth of coal available for extraction. This being the case, he believes we need to explore the potential for capturing carbon dioxide when it is generated in power stations and transport and store it underground. He admits that this may not be feasible on the scale necessary to reduce emmisions into the atmosphere sufficiently to halt global warming, but he reckons it's worth a shot.

So does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so this weekend I shall be having a look at their report on the matter, and you can too, by clicking here.