Explainer-Can technology solve the global climate crisis?
By Timothy Gardner
(Reuters) — Governments and investors are pouring billions of dollars into emerging technologies to combat global warming in long-shot bets that entrepreneurship can help lead the way to a climate-friendly world.
As officials from nearly 200 countries seek to forge agreements at the U.N. COP28 climate summit in Dubai this month, they will also be considering deployment of the nascent technologies.
The amount invested worldwide by venture capital and private equity into climate technology startups — in projects ranging from carbon capture and green hydrogen, to food waste reduction and cleaning up heavy industry — totaled $490 billion this year, according to a report by accounting firm PwC.
While that's down 40% from 2022 as economic uncertainty, stubborn inflation and high interest rates bite, it marks a relatively healthy showing given the investments across all business sectors dropped 50% over the same period, PwC said.
Here are some of the investment trends:
CARBON REMOVAL
The world emits around 37 billion metric tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide from fossil fuel and industry each year. One family of technologies, called carbon capture and storage, would tackle that by trapping those emissions before they reach the atmosphere, and storing them underground or using them to make products.
A big question, though, is whether it can work given the costs and the amount of energy required. The International Energy Agency, the West's energy watchdog, said in November that the oil and gas industry is relying excessively on carbon capture, and called the approach an implausible «illusion».
Even so, carbon removal is attracting loads of money.
The United States this year, for example, announced it would
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