Carbon dioxide will have to be extracted from the atmosphere and stored underground to prevent “severe, pervasive and irreversible” impacts of climate change, according to the UN’s scientific advisory body.
The intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) said that within the lifetime of today’s children, net emissions would have to fall below zero to have the best chance of preventing a dangerous temperature rise.
The IPCC’s synthesis report, summing up 5,000 pages of work by 800 scientists published in three previous reports, will underpin efforts by governments to agree on a global deal on emissions by December next year. It said emissions would have to fall by 40 to 70 per cent by 2050 compared with 2010, and be “near zero or below in 2100”.