India’s premier natural gas company GAIL entered into a joint venture with Nasdaq-listed LanzaTech to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) and convert it into useful organic chemicals. This must be recognised as a paradigm-setting initiative to combat climate change.
So far, the global discourse on combating climate change has been about reducing additional emissions of heat-trapping gases such as CO2, called greenhouse gases, rather than on taking out what has already been injected into the atmosphere. But now it is clear that the strategy of reducing additional emissions cannot by itself bring global temperatures to within 1.50C of pre-industrial levels. There is increasing acceptance that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) must be an integral part of the solution.