ABSTRACT
The burning of fossil fuels results in the emission of about 23 x 109 tonnes CO2/year to the Earth’s atmosphere. Once in the atmosphere CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas. Most forecasts indicate that global fossil fuel combustion is likely to increase over at least the next two decades, suggesting that CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere are set to increase substantially, which will further enhance the greenhouse effect and may lead to severe climate change. If these forecasts are correct, we need to find a way of reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. This is a global problem, in which UK emissions reduction can play only a small role, because UK anthropogenic CO2 emissions are in the order of 0.55-0.56 x 10
9 tonnes CO2 per year, less than 2.5 per cent of global emissions.
