Zeus: Why investors are betting the climate farm on carbon capture

As heat and oceans rise, we're rolling the dice that technology will save us.

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Oil and natural gas company California Resources Corp. has just announced two carbon storage agreements that would inject 140,000 metric tons of CO₂ into underground storage vaults, including one at a new plant at its oil and natural gas production facilities in the Elk Hills Oil Field in Kern County, Calif. The pipeline above is part of the Elk Hills project. Photo: CRC.

(David Callaway is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Callaway Climate Insights. He is the former president of the World Editors Forum, Editor-in-Chief of USA Today and MarketWatch, and CEO of TheStreet Inc. His climate columns have appeared in USA Today, The Independent, and New Thinking magazine).

SAN FRANCISCO (Callaway Climate Insights) — Today’s top climate headline confirmed what many have long suspected. The earth’s average global temperature will blast through the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting the increase to less than 1.5°C. above pre-industrial levels — maybe even this year.

We’re currently at about 1.1°C. above pre-industrial levels, but the global average temp increase could easily hit 1.5°C. or even 1.8°C. in coming years, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Any one of those years, including this year, could be the hottest on record. Already, we’ve seen record heat waves across Asia and in the Pacific Northwest.

But instead of jolting governments into any sort of emergency carbon emissions reduction plan, world leaders — and investors — are increasingly rolling the dice on the new and unproven technology of carbon capture and storage (CCS).