Swiss Review 1/2019

Swiss Review / January 2019 / No.1 15 The Climeworks pilot plant in Iceland: the heat required to operate it comes from the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant. Photo: Arni Saeberg ground basaltic rock caverns. Following a chemical reac- tion, the carbonic acid then precipitates as a carbonate, forming limestone, so to speak – a safe disposal virtually for eternity. Thanks to hot springs, there is also sufficient clean energy in Iceland to suck up the air from the atmos- phere. “As soon as the test phase of our pilot project in Iceland is finished, we hope to remove larger amounts of CO 2 from the atmosphere and sell it to individuals, organisations and companies,” said Climeworks Director Christoph Gebald. If, for example, companies carried out five percent of their CO 2 compensation measures using this method, “that would allowus to further industrialise this urgently needed CO 2 removal technology”. Massive dimensions The dimensions, however, are massive, as a few figures show. Climeworks has made it its goal to filter one per- cent of global emissions from the air by 2025 – that cor- responds annually to around 300 million tonnes of car- bon dioxide. To achieve this, some 250,000 plants like the one in Hinwil would be necessary. Yet, in a climate report published in autumn 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) anticipates that 100 to 1,000 gigatonnes of CO 2 would need to be extracted from the atmosphere – depending on how quickly greenhouse gas emissions drop. Swiss climatologist Thomas Stocker stated at the opening of the plant in Hinwil that all IPCC scenarios reckoned on the active removal of CO 2 from the atmosphere in the second half of the 21 st century. “1,000 gigatonnes, however, is unlikely to be achieved,” ETH Zu- rich climatologist Andreas Fischlin told various media. According to an estimate of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, the potential of direct CO 2 filtering is around 500 million to a maximum 10 gigatonnes per an- num. Greenpeace has some reservations The research and development work of the company Climeworks has been generally welcomed by the envi- ronmental organisation Greenpeace. Georg Klingler, cli- mate expert at Greenpeace Switzerland, also stressed to “ Swiss Review ” that such technologies will unfortunately be needed to a certain extent in future. But Klingler warned against harbouring illusions and mentioned a danger: those who back such solutions too strongly give politicians excuses to further delay the necessary dras- tic reduction in greenhouse gases. Greenpeace is also call- ing for technical measures in climate policy, but under- stands this to mean – in addition to avoidance of greenhouse gases – extensive afforestation in particular. This would also allow a substantial amount of carbon di- oxide to be removed from the atmosphere. In addition, it would be a win for biodiversity.