|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mon, 8th Mar 2021 10:54:00 |
|
Carbon-negative crops may mean water shortages for 4.5 billion people |
Billions more people could have difficulty accessing water if the world opts for a massive expansion in growing energy crops to fight climate change, research has found.
The idea of growing crops and trees to absorb CO2 and capturing the carbon released when they are burned for energy is a central plank to most of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s scenarios for the negative emissions approaches needed to avoid the catastrophic impacts of more than 1.5°C of global warming.
But the technology, known as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), could prove a cure worse than the disease, at least when it comes to water stress.
Fabian Stenzel at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and his colleagues project that the water needed to irrigate enough energy crops to stay under the 1.5°C limit would leave 4.58 billion people experiencing high water stress by 2100 – up from 2.28 billion today. That is 300 million more people than a scenario in which BECCS isn’t used at scale and warming spirals to a devastating 3°C.
“I was a little bit shocked. The takeaway message is, so far, we haven’t looked at side effects enough. To limit all the trade-offs that we might face in terms of climate change and climate change mitigation, it’s really important to look at the holistic Earth system,” says Stenzel.
Read original full article
|
| |
|
|
Back to Featured Articles
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Energy News
|
|
| |
| |
