The Carbon Cycle Behind Net Zero

What happens to carbon dioxide after we emit it? Half is absorbed within a year or two by plants and the oceans, the rest, in effect, stays in the atmosphere. So, does that mean we have to halve emissions to stop concentrations rising? Unfortunately, no.

Despite the vast reserves of carbon dissolved in the oceans, carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels does not get diluted away, but makes an indelible mark on climate for hundreds of thousands of years.

Part of:

Why Net Zero?

This event was on Tue, 07 Mar 2023

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/sites/default/files/transcript/2023-03-07-1800_ALLEN-T.pdf

Professor Myles Allen

Frank Jackson Foundation Professor of the Environment (2022-)

Professor Myles Allen took his first degree in Physics and Philosophy, followed by a doctorate in Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, both at the University of Oxford. He has worked at Oxford for most of his career, with early stints at MIT and the UN Environment Programme in Kenya, and is currently Director of the Oxford Net Zero initiative.

He has contributed extensively to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including as Coordinating Lead Author for the 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. He has published extensively on how human and natural influences on climate contribute to observed climate change and extreme weather risk, and the implications for adaptation and mitigation policy.

He was awarded the Appleton Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics in 2010, and in 2022 a CBE for services to climate change attribution, prediction and net zero.