"Companies can make carbon-based molecules without exploiting fossil hydrocarbons by reacting carbon dioxide with hydrogen. The CO 2 can be captured from existing fossil-based energy production or directly from the air, and hydrogen atoms can be extracted from water molecules, separating them from the oxygen atoms using a source of renewable energy. However, these chemical reactions are difficult to achieve, because both water and CO 2 are highly stable molecules."
"Many European nations have active defossilization research programmes, but scaling up the technology is not a high priority for their governments. By contrast, China is forging ahead with such projects. Although opportunities to collaborate continue to shrink (see Nature https://doi.org/qrx4; 2026), defossilization is not an area in which Europe and China need to compete. Both the European Union and China are committed to reducing emissions, albeit on different timescales. Defossilization is key to these ambitions."
Carbon-based compounds will still be required under net-zero scenarios for everyday products such as detergents, medicines and plastics, but these cannot continue to come from fossil sources. Carbon dioxide can be captured from emissions or the air and combined with hydrogen extracted from water using renewable energy to create sustainable carbon-based molecules. These reactions are technically difficult because CO 2 and water are highly stable. Many European nations research defossilization but deprioritize scaling, while China advances projects using concepts such as 'green carbon science' and 'liquid sunshine'.
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