What Pricey Glory

Carbon sequestration a pricey but feasible way to curb global warming

Carbon sequestration -- capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions -- isn't a cheap or easy solution to global warming, but it's doable. A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that with major investments, up to 40 percent of CO2 emissions from large industrial facilities around the world could be isolated, perhaps by injecting them into disused mines or oil fields or dissolving them in the oceans. Sequestration could achieve up to 55 percent of the reductions needed to rein in global warming by 2100, but a global market for carbon credits that trades at a minimum of $25 to $30 a ton would be needed to create incentive to invest in the technology. Everyone seems to agree that putting the necessary conditions in place would take strong political will -- a resource in questionable supply -- but some find good news in the promise carbon sequestration holds for actually curbing global temperature increases.