These days, there are no doubts about mankind’s contribution to climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels. If the burning of fossil fuels continues at current rates, our planet’s temperature will rise, which will lead to crop failures, extreme weather, and a rising sea-level.

If we are serious about stabilizing the planet’s temperature in the near future, the net amount of carbon dioxide we can emit is, according to scientists, zero.

Unfortunately, emissions reduction is painful. In 1997, when the Kyoto climate-change conference was held, wind, solar and hydropower satisfied just three percent of the world’s energy needs. In 2012, after 15 years of political bargaining, the contribution of these renewables to the world’s energy mix remains unchanged.

Many blame this on a lack of political will to take on vested interests — particularly those in the fossil fuel industry.

But Oliver Morton in his new book “The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World,” hints at the impossibility of zero emissions by pointing to the magnitude of our current emissions.

“The 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted in 2013 came from burning three trillion cubic meters of gas over the years; from burning almost three billion barrels of oil in each of its months; from burning a bit less than 300 tons of coal in each of its seconds. The infrastructure needed for all that burning was almost as complex as it was essential,” Morton explains.

Stabilizing the climate by reducing emissions would mean replacing the entire global energy infrastructure.

If we had the capacity to replicate the world’s largest nuclear power plant every week, it would take 20 years to replace our current stock of coal-fired power plants. We are reminded of Chernobyl, Fukushima, the risk of radioactive waste and the potential built up of nuclear weapons, and think of other options — and are told that it would take 150 years to replace these plants with solar panels.

The solution proves to be even more elusive when we realize how unequal the world is.

Today’s emissions are mainly contributed by the two billion people now enjoying “prosperity” in rich countries. But there are five billion people in the developing world who would be eager to burn more fossil fuels if it brings them closer to the affluence they aspire to.

Morton writes: “They deserve better.”

“Those people should be able to lead the lives that the affluent two billion lead today, with access to the industrial and agricultural goods and services that copious energy makes possible. And so should their children and grandchildren,” Morton argues.

Some countries are more committed to carbon reductions than others, but that would not go far unless all are involved, particularly the big emitters.

Elusive solutions

“There is a value in international negotiations: they can help shore up a sense of purpose; they can provide something by way of sticks and carrots. But an international agreement will not lead any government to follow climate policies that are clearly not supported at home for reasons of ideology, cost, or any other factor,” Morton observes. Equally true is the fact that real breakthroughs in curbing emissions would involve real sacrifices.

As Oliver Geden wrote on this page recently (“Small step could lead to green progress,” December 2), “The top-down approach that has guided the effort since 1992 is slowly being replaced by a bottom-up model.”

In other words, rather than attempting to craft an accord based on legally binding restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions, the new approach relies on voluntary commitments to emission reductions.

While small pragmatic steps from individual countries may be better than grand but unrealistic targets, Geden admits that such an approach does not encourage hope for reaching the goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to less than two degrees Celsius, the target set by the United Nations in 2010.

Thus action on cutting down on fossil fuel consumption is hard technically, hard on big spenders, and hard on investors in fossil fuels, who would certainly lobby against any such action.

It is against this background that Morton comes up with his visionary proposal: Climate geoengineering.

This refers to the deliberate modification of the climate, and includes such technologies as stratospheric veils against the sun, the cultivation of photosynthetic plankton, fleets of unmanned ships seeding the clouds, or pulling carbon dioxide out of the air.

“When the change that humans bring to this new Anthropocene state of the earthsystem is deliberate, I see it as geoengineering; in this book, that term will cover any deliberate technological intervention in the earthsystem on a global scale,” Morton explains.

Individual action

He moves on to explore the history, politics, and cutting-edge science of geoengineering.

For instance, he believes “large-scale direct-air capture of carbon dioxide would be a way of giving the Earth a climate other than the one it would expect”. One of the main investors in a direct-air-capture company is Bill Gates.

“Climate geoengineering can be pursued in very different ways, but the aim is always to decouple the climate from humanity’s cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide. It is to unshackle, if only to a very limited extent, the future from the past,” Morton concludes.

Morton affords us a fascinating look at the perils and promise of geoengineering on a warming planet, hinting at the near-inexhaustible ability of physics to provide changes. But this vision should not stand in the way of our seeking more immediate solutions to climate change, which lie with ourselves as individuals.

Unfortunately, Morton seems to be skeptical of this approach.

“The rich world contains quite a few people who have found that they can lead happier lives with less stuff, and the same might be true of many more, if we could only see our way to making that choice,” Morton writes.

Morton explains that he uses the pronoun “we” because “I accept that I may be among those who, because of the ingrained mindset of consumerism, are failing to follow a course of action which might make them happier”.

This is disquieting. As Eric Beinhocker and Myles Allen observed on this page (“The net zero imperative in fighting climate change,” December 16), while carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is technically capable of reducing emissions from coal and gas close to zero, “it remains very expensive, and efforts to develop the technology at scale have moved slowly.”

Morton’s futuristic vision is tantalizing, but it should be tempered with realism, and should not distract us individuals from acting on our conscience.