Restoring the Carbon Balance

Restoring the Carbon Balance – Session 1 (of 3) The budget imperative from Security & Sustainability Forum on Vimeo.

Aired on 1/11/2017

Arizona State University Hosteda Three Webinar Series on “Restoring the Carbon Budget”

The capacity of the Earth’s atmosphere to safely hold excess carbon without too much warming is  limited. The situation is growing more urgent. Even after the December 2015 Climate Conference in Paris, the pace to transform economies away from dumping fossil carbon into the atmosphere will likely be too slow to achieve the goal of holding the temperature increase to two degrees Celsius.

Unless that pace is dramatically accelerated, the planet will almost certainly  exceed its “carbon budget” within two decades, if it hasn’t already. This concern has led the   International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to conclude that Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs), which remove CO2 from the air, will be needed to meet climate  goals.

However, NETs are still in the research, development or demonstration stages of commercialization and may not be ready in time, or feasible at the necessary scale. That poses a conundrum.  Technologies cannot develop without policy drivers; policy cannot lead the way without the assurance of demonstrably affordable and scalable technologies. 

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Join Arizona State University’ Global institute of Sustainability and the Security and Sustainability Forum in the first of a  three-part series where leading experts addressed the research, policies, economics and accountability needed to  “Restore the Carbon Budget”.


Jefffrey Sachs

Session 1 Panelists include:Jeffrey Sachs, world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development senior UN advisor, bestselling author, syndicated columnist and former Director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute and Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change in the School of Mechanical, Aeronautical and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester. Kevin recently finished a two-year position as director of the Tyndall Centre. David Biello, Science Curator at Ted Talks and former Scientific American Energy and Environment Editor, will moderate the session.


Session 1 Panelists include:Jeffrey Sachs, world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development senior UN advisor, bestselling author, syndicated columnist and former Director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute and Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change in the School of Mechanical, Aeronautical and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester. Kevin recently finished a two-year position as director of the Tyndall Centre as well as  John Shepherd, Emeritus Professor of Earth System Science within the Ocean and Earth Science department of the Faculty of Natural and Environmental Science, University of Southampton, at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton and a Fellow of the Royal Society.


John Shepherd


David Biello

David Biello, Science Curator at Ted Talks and former Scientific American Energy and Environment Editor, will moderate the session.