Carbon

New catalyst design could make better use of captured carbon, researchers say

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 19:40:35 +0000

New catalyst design could make better use of captured carbon, researchers say

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 01/23/2023 - 14:40

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Post-doctoral researcher Adnan Ozden holds up a sample of the new catalyst, which improves the efficiency of reactions that convert captured CO2 into valuable products such as ethanol and ethylene (photo by Aaron Demeter)

Tyler Irving

Topic

Breaking Research

Carbon

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Research & Innovation

Sustainability

A new catalyst design created by researchers at the �ؿ�ζSM’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering could significantly improve the practicality of an electrochemical process that converts captured carbon dioxide into multi-carbon molecules – some of the key building blocks of the chemical industry.

“We need alternative routes to everyday products that do not require fossil fuel inputs,” says David Sinton, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering and senior author on a new paper published in Nature Energy.

“With recent advances in carbon capture, there is an opportunity to use CO2 to replace core chemical feedstocks on which the modern world relies. By developing cost-effective ways to upgrade this carbon into products we already need, we can increase the economic incentive to capture, rather than emit, CO2.”

One way to upgrade carbon involves electrochemistry – electricity used to drive forward a desired chemical reaction. The conversion is carried out in devices known as electrolyzers, where electrons combine with the reactants at the surface of a solid catalyst.

The team has a proven track record of successfully developing innovative ways to improve the efficiency of electrochemical CO2 conversion.

In their latest published work, the researchers focused on a variant of the process known as “cascade CO2 reduction.” In this two-step process, CO2 is first dissolved in a liquid electrolyte and then passed through an electrolyzer, where it reacts with electrons to form carbon monoxide (CO).

The CO is then passed through a second electrolyzer where it is converted into two-carbon products such as ethanol, which is commonly used as fuel, and ethylene, which is a precursor to many types of plastics as well as other consumer goods.

It is at this second step where the team found inefficiencies they believed could be overcome. The challenges were related to selectivity, which is the ability to maximize production of the target molecules by reducing the formation of undesirable side products.

“One of the key issues is the poor selectivity under low reactant availability,” says post-doctoral researcher Adnan Ozden, one of four lead authors on the new paper.

“This, in turn, leads to a trade-off between the energy efficiency – meaning how efficiently we use the electrons we pump into the system – versus the carbon efficiency, which is a measure of how efficiently we use CO2 and CO.”

“There are ways to achieve high energy efficiency, and there are ways to achieve high carbon efficiency, but they are usually approached separately,” says former post-doctoral researcher Jun Li, another of the lead authors, who is now an associate professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

“Achieving both in a single-operation mode is the key.”

In this schematic of the catalyst design, the large spheres represent copper nanoparticles, which are covered in a honeycomb-like mesh that represents the covalent organic framework. The blue spheres are positively charged cations and the clear ones are negatively charged anions. The coloured molecules on the surface represent the carbon monoxide reactant (CO) and the reaction product, ethylene (image courtesy of Alex Tokarev, Kate Zvorykina from Ella Maru studio)

The team investigated the reasons for this trade-off and found that it originates from excessive accumulation of the positively charged ions, known as cations, on the catalyst surface, as well as the undesirable migration of the negatively charged ions, known as anions, away from the catalyst surface.

To overcome this challenge, they took inspiration from the design of supercapacitors, another electrochemical system where the transport of ions is critical. They added a porous material, known as a covalent organic framework, onto the surface of the catalyst, which enabled them to control the transport of cations and anions in the local reaction environment.

“With this modification, we obtained a highly porous, highly hydrophobic catalyst layer,” says Li.

“In this design, the covalent organic framework interacts with the cations to limit their diffusion to the active sites. The covalent organic framework also confines the locally produced anions due to its high hydrophobicity.”

Using the new catalyst design, the team built an electrolyzer that converts CO into two-carbon products with 95 per cent carbon efficiency, while also keeping energy efficiency relatively high at 40 per cent.

“When you look at what has been achieved so far in the field, the various approaches have tended to focus either on getting really high energy efficiency, or really high carbon efficiency,” says Ozden. “Our new design shows that it’s possible to break this trade-off.”

There is still more work to be done. For example, while the prototype device maintained its performance for more than 200 hours, it will need to last even longer if it’s to be used industrially. Still, the new strategy shows potential in terms of its ability to improve the value proposition of upgrading captured carbon.

“If this process is going to be adopted commercially, we need to be able to show that we can accomplish the conversion in a way that’s scalable and cost-effective enough to make economic sense,” says Sinton. “I think our approach demonstrates that this is a goal within reach.”

U of T research looks at how to take the ‘petro’ out of the petrochemicals industry

noreen.rasbach — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 22:27:20 +0000

U of T research looks at how to take the ‘petro’ out of the petrochemicals industry

noreen.rasbach Tue, 04/30/2019 - 18:27

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Phil De Luna is the lead author of an article in Science that analyzes how green electricity and carbon capture could displace fossil fuels in the production of everything from fertilizer to textiles (photo by Tyler Irving)

Topic

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

Fossil fuels are the backbone of the global petrochemicals industry, which provides the world’s growing population with fuels, plastics, clothing, fertilizers and more. A new research paper, published last week in Science, charts a course for how an alternative technology – renewable electrosynthesis – could usher in a more sustainable chemical industry and ultimately enable us to leave much more oil and gas in the ground.

Phil De Luna, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, is the paper’s lead author. His research involved designing and testing catalysts for electrosynthesis, and last November he was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list of innovators in the category of Energy. He and his supervisor, Professor Ted Sargent, collaborated on the paper with an international team of researchers from Stanford University and TOTAL American Services, Inc.

Writer Tyler Irving sat down with De Luna to learn more about how renewable electrosynthesis could take the “petro” out of petrochemicals.

Can you describe the challenge you’re trying to solve?

Our society is addicted to fossil fuels – they’re in everything from the plastics in your phone to the synthetic fibres in your clothes. A growing world population and rising standards of living are driving demand higher every year.

Changing the system requires a massive global transformation. In some areas, we have alternatives – for example, electric vehicles can replace internal combustion engines. Renewable electrosynthesis could do something similar for the petrochemical industry.

What is renewable electrosynthesis?

Think about what the petrochemical industry does: It takes heavy, long-chain carbon molecules and uses high heat and pressure to break them down into basic chemical building blocks. Then, those building blocks get reassembled into plastics, fertilizers, fibres, etc.

Imagine that instead of using fossil fuels, you could use CO₂ from the air. And instead of doing the reactions at high temperatures and pressures, you could make the chemical building blocks at room temperature using innovative catalysts and electricity from renewable sources, such as solar or hydro power. That’s renewable electrosynthesis.

Once we do that initial transformation, the chemical building blocks fit into our existing infrastructure, so there is no change in the quality of the products. If you do it right, the overall process is carbon neutral or even carbon negative if powered completely by renewable energy.

Plants also take CO₂ from the air and make it into materials such as wood, paper and cotton. What is the advantage of electrosynthesis?

The advantages are speed and throughput. Plants are great at turning CO₂ into materials, but they also use their energy for things like metabolism and reproduction, so they aren’t very efficient. It can take 10 to 15 years to grow a tonne of usable wood. Electrosynthesis would be like putting the CO₂ capture and conversion power of 50,000 trees into a box the size of a refrigerator.

Why don’t we do this today?

It comes down to cost. You need to prove that the cost to make a chemical building block via electrosynthesis is on par with the cost of producing it the conventional way.

Right now there are some limited applications. For example, most of the hydrogen used to upgrade heavy oil comes from natural gas, but about four per cent is now produced by electrolysis – that is, using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. In the future, we could do something similar for carbon-based building blocks.

What did your analysis find?

We determined that there are two main factors: The first is the cost of electricity itself, and the second is the electrical-to-chemical conversion efficiency.

In order to be competitive with conventional methods, electricity needs to cost less than four cents per kilowatt-hour, and the electrical-to-chemical conversion efficiency needs to be 60 per cent or greater.

How close are we?

There are some places in the world where renewable energy from solar can cost as little as two or three cents per kilowatt-hour. Even in a place like Quebec, which has abundant hydro power, there are times of the year where electricity is sold at negative prices, because there is no way to store it. So, from an economic potential perspective, I think we’re getting close in a number of important jurisdictions.

Designing catalysts that can raise the electrical-to-chemical conversion efficiency is harder, and it’s what I spent my thesis doing. For ethylene, the best I’ve seen is about 35 per cent efficiency, but for some other building blocks, such as carbon monoxide, we’re approaching 50 per cent.

Of course, all this has been done in labs – it’s a lot harder to scale that up to a plant that can make kilotonnes per day. But I think there are some applications out there that show promise.

Can you give an example of what renewable electrosynthesis would look like?

Let’s take ethylene, which is by volume the world’s most-produced petrochemical. You could in theory make ethylene using CO₂ from the air – or from an exhaust pipe – using renewable electricity and the right catalyst. You could sell the ethylene to a plastic manufacturer, who would make it into plastic bags or lawn chairs or whatever.

At the end of its life, you could incinerate this plastic – or any other carbon-intensive form of waste – capture the CO₂, and start the process all over again. In other words, you’ve closed the carbon loop and eliminated the need for fossil fuels.

What do you think the focus of future research should be?

I’ve actually just taken a position as the program director of the clean energy materials challenge program at the National Research Council of Canada. I am building a $21 million collaborative research program, so this is something I think about a lot.

We’re currently targeting parts of the existing petrochemical supply chain that could easily be converted to electrosynthesis. There is the example I mentioned above, which is the production of hydrogen for oil and gas upgrading using electrolysis.

Another good building block to target would be carbon monoxide, which today is primarily produced from burning coal. We know how to make it via electrosynthesis, so if we could get the efficiency up, that would be a drop-in solution.

How does renewable electrosynthesis fit into the large landscape of strategies to reduce emissions and combat climate change?

I’ve always said that there’s no silver bullet. Instead, I think what we need is what I call a “silver buckshot” approach. We need recycled building materials, we need more efficient LEDs for lighting, we need better solar cells and better batteries.

But even if emissions from the electricity grid and the transportation network dropped to zero tomorrow, it wouldn’t do anything to help the petrochemical industry that supplies so many of the products we use every day. If we can start by electrifying portions of the supply chain, that’s the first step to building an alternative system.

Turning greenhouse gases into something useful at U of T

lanthierj — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 17:48:23 +0000

Turning greenhouse gases into something useful at U of T

lanthierj Tue, 04/11/2017 - 13:48

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Alexander Ip and his U of T research team, led by Professor Ted Sargent, will receive nearly $1 million from the Ontario government for the semi-final round of the Carbon XPRIZE competition (photo by Kevin Soobrian)

Chris Sorensen

Author legacy

Chris Sorensen

Topic

Subheadline

Ontario supports U of T researchers competing for Carbon XPRIZE

�ؿ�ζSM researchers are set to receive nearly $1 million from the Ontario government as they compete in the semi-final round of a $20 million global contest that looks for ways to turn harmful greenhouse gases into useful products like fuels and fertilizers.

The province recently said the team of over 15 multidisciplinary researchers, known as Carbon Electrocatalytic Recycling Toronto or CERT, will receive $833,000 to support the development and demonstration of its concept during the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE competition, which boasts $20 million worth of prizes.

The U of T team’s technology transforms carbon dioxide (CO₂) into formic acid, a colourless liquid commonly used to tan leather or as a preservative for livestock feed.

“We’re excited to see the province supporting U of T’s Carbon Electrocatalytic Recycling Toronto as it competes in the prestigious XPRIZE competition,” said Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president of research and innovation. “This funding will help CERT in this clean-tech research that will have meaningful impact on environmental sustainability.”

Saving the planet with carbon dioxide – U of T hosts gathering of experts on climate change

lanthierj — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 19:40:47 +0000

Saving the planet with carbon dioxide – U of T hosts gathering of experts on climate change

lanthierj Fri, 10/07/2016 - 15:40

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(photo by Isengardt via flickr)

Arthur Kaptainis

Author legacy

Arthur Kaptainis

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Forestry

Faculty of Arts & Science

Its official title is Transformative Research to Combat Climate Change but Professor Geoffrey Ozin dubs it “the Woodstock of carbon dioxide”.

On October 12, experts from around the world will gather at the �ؿ�ζSM for a cross-disciplinary look at one of the biggest challenges humanity faces. And they’re finding hope where many of us might not think to look: greenhouse gases.

“I think you can call this the Woodstock of carbon dioxide in Ontario,” says Ozin.

A University Professor in the department of chemistry, Ozin will give a presentation entitled CO2 Chemistry and Engineering Solutions to Climate Change.

Learn more about the event

Possibly the most widely reviled compound on the planet thanks to its effect on the environment, carbon dioxide is seen by most people as nothing more than a byproduct of fossil fuel consumption. But Ozin is one of a number of scientists who look at the most famous of greenhouse gases as a potential source of energy.

“Just as you recycle plastic, glass and paper, why not recycle carbon dioxide?” Ozin asks.

It won't happen overnight, Ozin says. At the core of the problem is the chemical stability of carbon dioxide. Energy must be applied to the molecule, preferably from renewable sources, to transform it into a fuel or product (manufacturing being a secondary aim of carbon-dioxide researchers).

It’s a process that could be compared to photosynthesis, the natural process by which plants generate energy from carbon dioxide and water. And the parallel has made biochemists and even forestry experts part of the CO2 research endeavour.

“There are many ways to tackle the climate change challenge, or, I would say, fight the climate change war,” says Professor Mohini Sain, dean of the Faculty of Forestry, which is the host of the conference.

“The Paris Agreement took two pathways: mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and reduction of fossil-fuel consumption. What we are saying at the �ؿ�ζSM is that there are other ways of doing this.

“We are bringing in a third paradigm: Use CO2 as a resource, just as we have used petroleum as a resource.”

Ontario Minister of the Environment and Climate Control Glenn Murray is set to open the event at U of T's Faculty Club. Speakers include a nanochemistry authority from Penn State University; a representative of the National Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC); and several alternative-energy company executives, as well as the director of alternative fuel platform management for Volvo trucks. Peter Styring, professor of chemical engineering and chemistry at the University of Sheffield and director of the UK Centre for Carbon Dioxide Utilization will deliver the plenary speech.

Ozin says it makes sense for Ford Canada to sponsor a conference dedicated to finding alternatives to fossil fuels.

“Can you imagine the pressure that the automobile industry is under?” he asks. “They put out 35 per cent of the emissions in the city. There are strict controls coming along. They have to figure them out. As do all the CO2 industries.”

The CO2 economy is a complex subject in its own right and Ozin does not hesitate to use the modifier “utopian” to describe his long-term thinking. But the basic goal is to turn CO2 into to a commodity with value.

“The beauty is this,” he says. “Fossil fuel will run out. Carbon dioxide will be recycled for the rest of time.”

Sain foresees a cohort of young scientists occupying this research area, both in universities and in corporate research departments. He expects some will migrate from crowded fields where research is taking a traditional approach to the CO2 dilemma.

“We want to make it happen,” he says. “Not only from the research point of view, but making a transition to demonstrating its viability.”

(Visit flickr to see the original of the photo used above)

Debating Trudeau’s carbon pricing strategy

ullahnor — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:20:17 +0000

Debating Trudeau’s carbon pricing strategy

ullahnor Tue, 10/04/2016 - 14:20

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(Photo by Aaron Huey/National Geographic/Getty Images)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

Munk School of Global Affairs. Faculty of Arts & Science

UTSC

�ؿ�ζSM Scarborough

Subheadline

U of T experts weigh in on whether plan will help Canada reach Paris targets or national agreement

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau surprised some of the provinces this week with a plan to set a minimum carbon tax. Trudeau announced that provinces would have to adopt a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system of their own, or Ottawa will impose its own tax – starting with $10 a tonne in 2018, going up by $10 each year to $50 a tonne by 2022.

But not all provinces are on board. At a meeting with federal officials to discuss options for carbon pricing – which coincidentally was taking place at the same time as Trudeau’s announcement – delegations from Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia walked out of the meeting. Saskatchewan has previously threatened legal action and Alberta has made its support contingent upon “serious concurrent progress on energy infrastructure.”

U of T News asked four experts – Matthew Hoffmann, a professor of political science at �ؿ�ζSM Scarborough and co-director of Munk School’s Environmental Governance Lab; Douglas Macdonald, senior lecturer at the School of the Environment; Geography Professor Danny Harvey; and U of T Mississauga's assistant professor of political science Sara Hughes – whether a pan-Canadian agreement can be reached. Some think it can work. Others are not so sure.

Will Trudeau’s carbon pricing proposal work? Is there any hope of a nation-wide agreement?

Matthew Hoffmann: There are a number of dimensions to this plan “working,” including whether it helps reach the government’s climate goals, whether it can be implemented, and whether provinces will buy in. One smart aspect of this plan, even given the immediate negative reaction of three provinces, is that it is very flexible for the provinces. What the federal government is putting in place is a price floor, the minimum price on carbon. That floor only comes into play if a province does not put in place their own carbon-pricing system. Provinces can do whatever works best for their particular situation as long as it meets the price-floor requirement. Further, even if the federal carbon tax is implemented, the revenue from that tax is returned to the province. There is enormous flexibility for provinces here along with a unified carbon price. This is a good recipe, even if there will be some difficulty in getting buy-in from all provinces. In addition, Canada needs to work hard on a just transition away from fossil fuels because of how dependent some provinces are on the energy and fossil fuel sectors. Communities dependent on fossil fuel industries and the ordinary people who live in them will bear the costs of the dislocation that is inevitable in such a necessary transition. It is both right and politically smart to provide support (financial, training, careful transition planning for communities).

Douglas Macdonald: I think there is very little hope. The federal government has been clumsy in its approach with the provinces. First, by insisting on a national price even before the first meeting with premiers March 3 in Vancouver. Then, by ratifying the Paris agreement before reaching an agreement with the provinces. Thirdly, by insulting them yesterday by inviting them to a meeting to discuss common action and then that same day making a unilateral announcement. The provinces are the key players here. What we need to do is put in place a process which will allow agreement on sharing the costs of the reduction.

Sara Hughes: Trudeau's carbon pricing proposal has a good chance of working, in part because it requires very little in the near term from several provinces, including Ontario, that have already established carbon pricing schemes of their own. The advantage of the federal government's intervention is that it will help to bring other provinces on board and create a minimum level of mitigation effort expected of provinces. One factor that will help or hinder the ultimate success of Trudeau's proposal will be the decisions provinces make about how the revenues generated from carbon emissions will be used. These revenues could be used to further invest in low-carbon infrastructures such as public transportation or energy efficiency upgrades, or used as tax breaks to polluters disgruntled at having to pay to reduce their emissions.

Danny Harvey: Maybe not. But the federal government still can (and must, if necessary) act on its own. Along with the carbon tax, the federal government’s actions to reduce greenhouse emissions could include infrastructure funding (including a national HVDC grid to use renewable energy), funding for building retrofits, refusal to approve any new fossil fuel infrastructure projects, vehicle standards and any other standards where the federal government has jurisdiction on the issue.

Environmentally, will the pricing be enough to cut carbon emissions significantly? Will it help us meet what we agreed to at the Paris climate conference?

Matthew Hoffmann: The carbon-price floor in the federal government’s plan starts off quite low, but ramps up. This should have an impact on Canadian emissions according to economic models. Carbon pricing alone, and carbon pricing at this low to modest level, will likely not be enough on its own to meet Canada’s Paris targets, but it is a good start and it is concrete national level action that has been missing in Canada for far too long.

Douglas Macdonald: No. It will not provide the reduction needed. Canada has to get down to 542 megatonnes (Mts) total emissions in 2030 from a projected level, including the new Alberta and Ontario programs of 709 Mts. That means a reduction of about a quarter. The federal tax will only bring about reductions in provinces which do not have a price, and their emissions are a small part of the Canadian total. It is the provinces which contribute the bulk of emissions, e.g. Ontario and Alberta which account for 60 per cent of the total, which must do more. But they are not objecting to the federal statement, beyond Alberta wanting a pipeline, because they know they are not being asked to do more. For that reason, this measure alone cannot meet the 2030 goal. But Trudeau and his government may honestly feel that we have to start with a price throughout the country and then increase it. But there is also a political benefit – by framing the problem as a lack of a national price, rather than a need to cut emissions by a quarter beyond existing initiatives, he gives himself a problem he can solve. He can claim success, as long as everybody ignores the fact that he is not taking action which will meet the 2030 goal.

Sara Hughes: The prices proposed by Trudeau will certainly help Canada meet its Paris commitments, but it alone will not be sufficient to ensure significant reductions in carbon emissions. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions 30 per cent by 2030 also does not represent the level of emissions reductions the international community agreed are necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change. These carbon prices will need to be accompanied by further policy development and investments in low-carbon technologies and infrastructures, particularly in Canada's cities and energy systems.

Danny Harvey: I can't see how it could. The tax is way too small - when it reaches $50/tonne in 2022, it still amounts to only 11 cents/litre on gasoline, for example. We did not see a real shift to existing more fuel-efficient cars until gasoline peaked at around $1.40/litre around 2008, and it is now around $1.00/litre. Consumers have gone back to buying less fuel-efficient vehicles. Overall, a much stronger price signal is needed – maybe start at $30/tonne in 2017 and go up by $20-30/tonne per year until we reach $200/tonne, which amounts to 44 cents/litre on gasoline.

Election 2015: action needed on climate change, expert says

sgupta — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:48:30 +0000

Election 2015: action needed on climate change, expert says sgupta Tue, 08/25/2015 - 12:48

Alan Christie

Author legacy

Alan Christie

Election 2015

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Subheadline

U of T's John Kirton says carbon taxes, consultation are not enough

Whoever wins the federal election must “move further and faster” to outlaw the use of major carbon pollutants, especially coal and methane, says political science professor John Kirton.

Kirton, director of the G7 Research Group at the Munk School of Global Affairs, is co-author of a new book, The Global Governance of Climate Change, with the Munk School's Ella Kokotsis. In its first sentence the book describes climate change as “arguably the most compelling global issue of our time.”

Climate change shares with nuclear war the prospect of ending human life. But there is a distinction. Preventing nuclear war, Kirton points out, requires the rational behaviour of a handful of leaders. “With climate change it’s all of us all the time, every day and every way.”

The scientific consensus is overwhelming, Kirton says, that catastrophic climate change can be avoided only if we limit the rise in the mean surface temperature to two degrees Celsius above the levels that prevailed at the start of the Industrial Revolution. “We’ve already used up about half of that allowance,” he points out, “and it’s going up, up, up pretty fast.”

It is essential, he says, to outlaw major carbon pollutants such as coal and methane. According to the Natural Resources Canada website, about 12.6 per cent of Canada’s electricity supply comes from coal. Ontario has phased out its coal-fired plants.

Methane is the main component of raw natural gas and produces carbon dioxide when burned for energy. A joint report by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation released in 2011 cites an Environment Canada estimate which found that carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas as an end product represent approximately four-fifths of total greenhouse gas emissions.

The remaining one-fifth comes from upstream emissions – production, processing, transmission and distribution of the gas. Of these emissions, about half comes from the burning of natural gas, which acts to release methane into the atmosphere.

This is no time for political parties, including the parties contesting the federal election, to be talking about consulting others or doing more studies. “Act now, It’s the precautionary principle. We will have no regrets because we know a lot of this stuff is deadly.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has done the right thing by moving to ban the use of “killer” coal,” Kirton says. “While he should be going further in outlawing pollutants, he is moving in the right direction.” The carbon taxes and cap-and-trade programs espoused by some, he adds, are useless. These schemes make it possible to “pay to pollute” and privilege the rich.

Kirton credits Harper also for having embraced the “inclusive” or “all-in” principle that engages all rich countries in the battle against climate change, including China, which has overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest polluter. U.S. President Barack Obama has acted to control carbon and now so has China.

Kirton concedes that “it may already be too late” to halt the devastating effects of climate change. “But when you say that, you disempower everybody – let’s all party before we die.”

Two clear examples of climate change are the melting of Arctic ice and the great permafrost in Russia, which has stored methane. As it thaws, the methane entombed in the ice – a deadly greenhouse gas – is released into the atmosphere. This constitutes “another runaway system.”

One of the problems affecting environmental awareness in Canada, Kirton says, is that we are “well insulated” in the central areas from the most disastrous effects of climate change, which will start in the oceans.

Nevertheless, long-term polling data suggest that from a foreign-policy perspective, Canadians believe the environment is the number one issue. “I find it amazing that for decades (political parties) haven’t acted on that basis,” Kirton says. “It could be very popular in a national unifying way.”

Kirton believes that his book carries a message of hope rather than doom.

“The world has discovered that the old United Nations view – putting development of third-world countries first, allowing them to pollute at will – doesn’t work. We are moving to the inclusive all-in principle, putting the environment first.”

The next major climate change summit is in Paris in December. Kirton is confident that the rich countries will come through with the $100 billion a year they have promised to fight climate change.

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Carbon

New catalyst design could make better use of captured carbon, researchers say

U of T research looks at how to take the ‘petro’ out of the petrochemicals industry

Turning greenhouse gases into something useful at U of T

Read more about the team

Saving the planet with carbon dioxide – U of T hosts gathering of experts on climate change

Learn more about the event

Debating Trudeau’s carbon pricing strategy

Election 2015: action needed on climate change, expert says