The Make America First Case for Carbon Capture
By Beau Rothschild
RealClearEnergy
NEW YORK, NY (October 5, 2018) — Next month, United Nations scientists are set to report that we can no longer win the battle against climate change by reducing carbon emissions: we have to start draining those emissions from the air. This conclusion simply adds to a growing scientific consensus that carbon removal technologies that actively remove CO2 already in circulation can be delayed no longer. Thus far, the U.S. government has only shown lukewarm support for these technologies, but America has as much to gain as anyone from their mass adoption. It’s time for President Donald J. Trump and his administration to take a second look at this issue to put America first in carbon capture technology.
The UN report is hardly surprising given the problems that have blighted the Paris climate agreement. Trump, of course, has already pulled out, and many other countries are showing indifference; a report earlier this year ranked three-quarters of EU member-states “poor” in their attempts to meet their Paris obligations. A recent meeting, supposed to lay down a set of rules for the agreement’s implementation, ended in deadlock – the latest in a series of tetchy summits that have exposed political fault lines in the accord.