By Justine Calma , a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hel

Trying to reverse climate change won’t save us, scientists warn

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2024-10-23 21:00:05

By Justine Calma , a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home, a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals.

Tech companies think they can reverse climate change with fancy new tools to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But new research throws cold water on the idea that cooling the planet after it has already heated beyond a key turning point can avoid serious damage. Much of the toll climate change takes — from rising seas to lost homes — can’t be undone, recent research published in the journal Nature warns.

That makes it all the more urgent for governments and companies with climate goals to slash pollution from fossil fuels now, rather than offsetting or capturing their greenhouse gas emissions after the fact.

“Climate change comes with irreversible consequences. Every degree of warming, or every point of a degree of warming ... comes with irreversible consequences,” Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, lead author of the paper and head of the integrated climate impacts research group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, said in a call with reporters before the paper was published.