[el_nahual]

Agreed on the need to invest in carbon capture now. My main argument was that a) reducing emissions to ~0 is going to be necessary even if we invent some insanely efficient carbon sequestration tech; b) the longer we wait, the worse the problem gets, in an exponential way. Emissions reproduce; c) Therefore the bulk of our effort should be spent trying to get emissions down to 0. Because if we fail at that (a task that we know how to accomplish), then no amount of sequestration tech will save us.

[angusb]

Hmm, still not sure I agree. Reducing emissions to close to 0 is definitely very important but it seems probable that we'll reach a steady state where some niche sources of carbon still persist, and are accompanied by corresponding capture. Some niche sources are just unbelievably hard to decarbonise

If in 20 years 1% of our emissions remain but they are accompanied by capture (with a multiplier to account for inefficiencies in capture) then that would be ok by me.

(You'd still want the extra carbon removal to reverse the warming caused by past emissions ofc)