{"id":58361,"date":"2021-06-24T06:17:13","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T11:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58361"},"modified":"2021-06-24T06:17:13","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T11:17:13","slug":"asymmetry-in-carbon-dioxide-emissions-and-removals-could-skew-climate-targets-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58361","title":{"rendered":"Asymmetry in carbon dioxide emissions and removals could skew climate targets: research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asymmetry in carbon dioxide emissions and removals could skew climate targets: research<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Credit: CC0 Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Changes in climate resulting from carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>) emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere are not equal to the climate changes from deliberate CO2<\/sub>\u00a0removals\u2014and assuming such a balance could lead to different climate outcomes that may skew climate targets, according to new Simon Fraser University-led research.<\/p>\n

“Because of the complexity of the Earth’s system, things are not as simple as “one ton of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0in, equals one ton of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0out,” says Kirsten Zickfeld, a distinguished professor of climate science in SFU’s Department of Geography, and lead author of a new paper published this week in the journal\u00a0Nature Climate Change<\/i>. “CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions are more effective at raising atmospheric CO2<\/sub>\u00a0concentration than CO2<\/sub>\u00a0removals are at lowering it.”<\/p>\n

According to Zickfeld, this “asymmetry” implies that a larger amount of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0removal is required to compensate for a given amount of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions if the atmospheric CO2<\/sub>\u00a0concentration is to remain unchanged.<\/p>\n

Researchers used a series of climate model simulations to test whether the change in climate resulting from CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions and removals is asymmetric. Their results showed that the rise in the atmospheric CO2<\/sub>\u00a0concentration following an\u00a0emission<\/a>\u00a0is larger than the decline following a removal of the same magnitude.<\/p>\n

Findings of the study infer that balancing a given amount of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions with an equal amount of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0removals could lead to a different climate outcome than avoiding the CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions.<\/p>\n

“Our study suggests that assuming exact balance between CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions and an equal amount of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0removals in a net-zero framework risks blowing climate targets,” she says.<\/p>\n

While Zickfeld says that balancing emissions with CO2<\/sub>\u00a0removals of the same magnitude could lead to different\u00a0climate<\/a>\u00a0outcomes, further study is needed to learn more about the extent of this effect.<\/p>\n

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Asymmetry in carbon dioxide emissions and removals could skew climate targets: research Credit: CC0 Public Domain Changes in climate resulting from carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere are not equal to the climate changes from deliberate CO2\u00a0removals\u2014and assuming such a balance could lead to different climate outcomes that may skew climate targets, according […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[113,141,6088],"class_list":["post-58361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-climate-change","tag-simon-fraser-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58362,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58361\/revisions\/58362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}