ALL-INCLUSIVE IPCC — The "synthesis report" released by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Monday puts a thumb firmly on the side of doing everything possible to slow global warming: "Everything, everywhere all at once," in the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres. If two worldviews have emerged over the past several years in response to steadily increasing CO2 levels and worsening climate impacts — do everything or only the most-effective things — "all of the above" is winning the tug of war. The worse things get, the better every type of climate mitigation looks. Bad news for the planet is good news for some, including the new crop of buzzy technologies that promise to capture carbon dioxide and bury it or use it. "Each passing year, basically, the role and the importance of these technologies becomes more important because the window in which to act and kind of keep the climate system in the way that is livable for humanity is closing," Jessie Stolark, executive director of the nonprofit Carbon Capture Coalition, told our Allison Prang. It's also good for the existing stable of carbon markets and technologies. That includes mainstays like renewables and electric vehicles but also nuclear power, low-carbon construction materials, reforestation, reducing methane from agriculture and fossil fuels and "sustainable healthy diets," all of which get shoutouts in the IPCC's report. (It's worth looking at page 28 for a relative ranking of each solution's cost and emissions benefits.) Expect more attempts to monetize nature, more corporate interest in voluntary carbon markets, and much, much more talk about "natural capital." ("Not a silver bullet" is the new "silver bullet.") Marco Albani, CEO of Chloris Geospatial, a Boston-based startup that's using satellites to estimate the amount of carbon stored in vegetation, envisions a new world of data on the effectiveness of nature-based solutions — a "Bloomberg for nature." One notable omission in the report: There was no mention of geoengineering, a far-off idea to block sunlight that's gained cachet recently with scientists and members of Congress. It would have been interesting to hear what the IPCC thinks of the technology, which kicks off the plot of Kim Stanley Robinson's 2020 climate-geopolitics novel, Ministry for the Future. "The idea that these impacts are going to happen like they're saying but we will not utilize geoengineering strikes me as something that requires greater explanation than is in the IPCC report," said Michael Wara, director of policy at Stanford University's Doerr School of Sustainability. "At some point, all options are on the table. I don't know what that point is. I don't think we're there yet, but if you take this report seriously, we might get there pretty darn soon."
| 
