The emissions in our atmosphere are at work, heating the planet, acidifying our oceans, and leading to climate-fueled disasters: heat waves, fires, flooding, droughts, and storms. For some climate impacts, devastation can be followed by the painstaking work of recovery. But for many natural systems, like our tropical coral reefs, the stress we are putting on them is reaching the realms of permanent decline and ultimate collapse.
The big picture: Solar radiation management - reflecting more of the sun's energy back into space - is a subset of geoengineering that's shifting from fringe science and conspiracy theory into mainstream policy debate. How it works: Solar radiation management, or solar geoengineering, aims to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight. The most-discussed method involves injecting sulfuric-acid particles into the upper atmosphere, mimicking the cooling effect of volcanic eruptions.
Removing carbon from the atmosphere will be necessary to avoid catastrophic tipping points, one of the world's leading scientists has warned, as even in the best-case scenario the world will heat by about 1.7C. Johan Rockstrom of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who is one of the chief scientific advisers to the UN and the Cop30 presidency, said 10bn tonnes of carbon dioxide needed to be removed from the air every year even to limit global heating to 1.7C (3.1F) above preindustrial levels.
Let's recognise our failure, he told the Guardian and Amazon-based news organisation Sumauma. The truth is that we have failed to avoid an overshooting above 1.5C in the next few years. And that going above 1.5C has devastating consequences. Some of these devastating consequences are tipping points, be it in the Amazon, be it in Greenland, or western Antarctica or the coral reefs. He said the priority at Cop30 was to shift direction:
