[PAOCQ] Myles Allen (Oxford)
Date: Monday, March 23, 2026 Time: 12:00 - 1:00pm Location: 55-110 | MIT Campus, Cambridge, MA“Geological Net Zero and the future of fossil fuels”
The challenges of reducing fossil fuel use are increasingly evident, and countries and corporations are grappling with the precise definition of “net zero emissions”: specifically, what should be included in “removals by sinks” in Article 4 of the Paris Agreement. I will explain how a durable carbon balance must include Geological Net Zero, meaning for every tonne of carbon dioxide still produced from fossil sources, one tonne is captured, either at source or back out of the atmosphere, and committed to geological-timescale storage. We also need to protect passive carbon sinks, meaning uptake of carbon dioxide by the oceans and land biosphere that is occurring because of past emissions, but in addition to, not fungible with, achieving Geological Net Zero. Policies to mandate rapid reductions in fossil fuel use are proving divisive (to put it mildly). A complementary framing would be to focus on reducing the net geological carbon intensity, NGCI, of the fossil fuels we still use. This is the fraction of CO2 generated from geological sources that is released rather than being captured and permanently stored. At present, the NGCI of global fossil fuel use is over 99.9%. It must be reduced to zero to stop fossil fuels from causing further global warming. Right now, however, not a single country or corporation reports the NGCI of the fuels it either produces or uses, so fixing that would be a zero-cost start. Beyond reporting, we need new policies that specifically drive down the NGCI of remaining fossil fuel use: an objective that traditional climate policies have so far failed to deliver.
PAOC Colloquium —
Interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC (Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate) community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, as well as talks about societal impacts of climatic processes.
Contact: paoc-colloquium-comm@mit.edu