On “geological net zero”

The problem with our current understanding of net zero is that it doesn’t reflect the timescales involved. When we burn fossil carbon, in essence what we’re doing is taking ancient forests that died and became coal over tens of millions of years — at high pressures deep under the Earth’s surface — and we’re putting that up in the atmosphere in just a few decades and expecting a tree to grow and somehow be an offset. A tree lives for 100 years and then dies and gives the carbon back to the atmosphere. That’s why we refer to geological net zero. It means that emissions from fossil fuels must be balanced by carbon that is permanently sequestered in geological reserves, whether it be through carbon capture and storage or direct air capture and storage.

On multilateral climate agreements

As far as I can tell, the net outcome of COP29 [the most recent United Nations climate conference, held in November 2024] was a spike in greenhouse gas emissions as thousands of people flew from all corners of the world to descend on Azerbaijan, a petrostate, to have a holiday, because nothing of substance was accomplished there. It was a complete and utter embarrassment. It was an abdication of responsibility by our elected leaders. This is wasting everyone’s efforts because they spend all their time trying to figure out ways of gaming the system so as to not actually reduce fossil fuel emissions. I think, frankly, the scientific community and NGOs should boycott these, because they have become a joke.

On an immediate energy transition

Rather than spending all our time trying to game the system with carbon offsets, far better would be to decarbonize energy systems now and go all in on negative emissions technologies. I can’t tell you how many millions of dollars I see being spent on research and development in terms of nature-based climate solutions because that’s simple: plant some trees and away you go. These are kick-the-can-down-the-road policies that make you think you’re doing something. I’d like us to keep planting trees, too, but the real issue here is what are we doing with the expansion of oilsands extraction? What are we doing with the expansion of liquefied natural gas? What are we doing approving offshore exploration in the Atlantic Ocean?

International leaders have really not taken this problem seriously. And the reason why is that it doesn’t manifest itself right away. Those making the decisions today won’t actually have to live the consequences of the decisions they did or did not make.