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Bank expected to retain offices in London and Edinburgh, as bid from Australian bank Macquarie accepted despite stiff political opposition

The government has agreed a £2.3bn sale of the Green Investment Bank to the Australian bank Macquarie, according to sources close to the process.

The privatisation of the bank was expected in January but signoff was delayed in the face of stiff political opposition and wrangling over the final price.

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Humans have burned 420 billion tonnes of carbon since the start of the industrial revolution. Half of it is still in the atmosphere. Reuters/Stringer

Getting climate change under control is a formidable, multifaceted challenge. Analysis by my colleagues and me suggests that staying within safe warming levels now requires removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The technology to do this is in its infancy and will take years, even decades, to develop, but our analysis suggests that this must be a priority. If pushed, operational large-scale systems should be available by 2050.

We created a simple climate model and looked at the implications of different levels of carbon in the ocean and the atmosphere. This lets us make projections about greenhouse warming, and see what we need to do to limit global warming to within 1.5℃ of pre-industrial temperatures – one of the ambitions of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

To put the problem in perspective, here are some of the key numbers.

Humans have emitted 1,540 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide gas since the industrial revolution. To put it another way, that’s equivalent to burning enough coal to form a square tower 22 metres wide that reaches from Earth to the Moon.

Half of these emissions have remained in the atmosphere, causing a rise of CO₂ levels that is at least 10 times faster than any known natural increase during Earth’s long history. Most of the other half has dissolved into the ocean, causing acidification with its own detrimental impacts.

Although nature does remove CO₂, for example through growth and burial of plants and algae, we emit it at least 100 times faster than it’s eliminated. We can’t rely on natural mechanisms to handle this problem: people will need to help as well.

What’s the goal?

The Paris climate agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2℃, and ideally no higher than 1.5℃. (Others say that 1℃ is what we should be really aiming for, although the world is already reaching and breaching this milestone.)

In our research, we considered 1℃ a better safe warming limit because any more would take us into the territory of the Eemian period, 125,000 years ago. For natural reasons, during this era the Earth warmed by a little more than 1℃. Looking back, we can see the catastrophic consequences of global temperatures staying this high over an extended period.

Sea levels during the Eemian period were up to 10 metres higher than present levels. Today, the zone within 10m of sea level is home to 10% of the world’s population, and even a 2m sea-level rise today would displace almost 200 million people.

Clearly, pushing towards an Eemian-like climate is not safe. In fact, with 2016 having been 1.2℃ warmer than the pre-industrial average, and extra warming locked in thanks to heat storage in the oceans, we may already have crossed the 1℃ average threshold. To keep warming below the 1.5℃ goal of the Paris agreement, it’s vital that we remove CO₂ from the atmosphere as well as limiting the amount we put in.

So how much CO₂ do we need to remove to prevent global disaster?

Are you a pessimist or an optimist?

Currently, humanity’s net emissions amount to roughly 37 gigatonnes of CO₂ per year, which represents 10 gigatonnes of carbon burned (a gigatonne is a billion tonnes). We need to reduce this drastically. But even with strong emissions reductions, enough carbon will remain in the atmosphere to cause unsafe warming.

Using these facts, we identified two rough scenarios for the future.

The first scenario is pessimistic. It has CO₂ emissions remaining stable after 2020. To keep warming within safe limits, we then need to remove almost 700 gigatonnes of carbon from the atmosphere and ocean, which freely exchange CO₂. To start, reforestation and improved land use can lock up to 100 gigatonnes away into trees and soils. This leaves a further 600 gigatonnes to be extracted via technological means by 2100.

Technological extraction currently costs at least US$150 per tonne. At this price, over the rest of the century, the cost would add up to US$90 trillion. This is similar in scale to current global military spending, which – if it holds steady at around US$1.6 trillion a year – will add up to roughly US$132 trillion over the same period.

The second scenario is optimistic. It assumes that we reduce emissions by 6% each year starting in 2020. We then still need to remove about 150 gigatonnes of carbon.

As before, reforestation and improved land use can account for 100 gigatonnes, leaving 50 gigatonnes to be technologically extracted by 2100. The cost for that would be US$7.5 trillion by 2100 – only 6% of the global military spend.

Of course, these numbers are a rough guide. But they do illustrate the crossroads at which we find ourselves.

The job to be done

Right now is the time to choose: without action, we’ll be locked into the pessimistic scenario within a decade. Nothing can justify burdening future generations with this enormous cost.

For success in either scenario, we need to do more than develop new technology. We also need new international legal, policy, and ethical frameworks to deal with its widespread use, including the inevitable environmental impacts.

Releasing large amounts of iron or mineral dust into the oceans could remove CO₂ by changing environmental chemistry and ecology. But doing so requires revision of international legal structures that currently forbid such activities.

Similarly, certain minerals can help remove CO₂ by increasing the weathering of rocks and enriching soils. But large-scale mining for such minerals will impact on landscapes and communities, which also requires legal and regulatory revisions.

And finally, direct CO₂ capture from the air relies on industrial-scale installations, with their own environmental and social repercussions.

Without new legal, policy, and ethical frameworks, no significant advances will be possible, no matter how great the technological developments. Progressive nations may forge ahead toward delivering the combined package.

The costs of this are high. But countries that take the lead stand to gain technology, jobs, energy independence, better health, and international gravitas.

Eelco Rohling receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the UK Natural Environment Research Council. Eelco Rohling is also affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK.

BBC Springwatch presenter, making a film about Malta’s spring hunt of migrating birds, accused of ‘pushing against’ man

Chris Packham, the naturalist and broadcaster, has been charged with assault and trespass in Malta after confronting hunters he believes had illegally trapped wild birds.

The BBC Springwatch presenter and naturalist will appear before magistrates on Thursday morning on the island of Gozo after being charged with “attempting to use force” and “pushing against” a Maltese man.

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A large asteroid the size of the Rock of Gibraltar has passed safely by Earth.

Physicists have created a fluid with negative mass, which accelerates backwards when pushed.

Doug Derwin is investing up to $2m to persuade Tesla’s CEO to speak out against US climate change policies and resign from groups advising Trump

Luxury car owners may seem like an unlikely target for organizing a political resistance movement, but to Doug Derwin, it’s all about the make: Tesla.

Derwin is investing up to $2m in an effort to persuade Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, to speak out against Donald Trump’s climate change policy and resign from his positions in groups advising Trump on business and manufacturing jobs. On Monday, Derwin launched the website ElonDumpTrump.com laying out his argument that Musk’s role in the administration is inconsistent with his role as a leader on climate change.

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The first ever camera trap survey in the previously inaccessible Karen State hill forests has recorded a wealth of globally threatened mammals living in south-east Asia’s last great wilderness

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The Australian Heritage Council is assessing the Queen Victoria Markets for potential inclusion on the National Heritage List. Comments close 14 July 2017.

A postbox gets the stamp of approval from a pair of nesting birds.

SolarQ - comprising fossil fuel industry veterans - plans huge solar farm and battery storage in Queensland in yet another sign that the industry is looking to new technologies to solve old problems. The solar and storage will effectively replace gas peaking plant and deal with massive "flex" in local demand.

Acciona Energy breaks ground on Mt Gellibrand wind farm, a $258m project that was fast-tracked after winning a Victorian government tender.

Walkhampton, Dartmoor A shepherd on his quad bike remarks on the contrast with last week’s rain, wind and mud

From the western edge of Dartmoor, heat haze obscures views towards familiar territory in the Tamar Valley. Up here, by Lowery Cross, in sight of glittering ripples on Burrator Reservoir, ponies graze among dazzling yellow gorse; drab turfy banks are starred with a few violets, and the sound of chiffchaff echoes from coniferous plantations.

Nearby, a bridge, rebuilt in 2015, is part of the footpath and cycleway on a section of the long-defunct Plymouth and Dartmoor railway; across the bridge and via the gently sloping trail, Princetown is seven miles away, twice the distance that a crow might fly.

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Humane Society applies for lethal shark control programs to be listed as ‘threatening’ under conservation act

Environmentalists are attempting to list shark culling and the use of drum lines as threats to endangered species under federal law.

Humane Society International has applied for lethal shark control programs in in New South Wales and Queensland to be listed as “key threatening processes” under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

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As centralised and distributed energy markets continue to diverge, can the curse of capital allocation be managed in a way that creates value (or at least minimises loss) for shareholders?

Five environmental groups point to ‘trophy’ hunting – largely by Americans who travel to Africa – among key threats to animals

Conservationists have lodged a formal request for the US government to list giraffes as endangered in a bid to prevent what they call the “silent extinction” of the world’s tallest land animal.

A legal petition filed by five environmental groups has demanded that the US Fish and Wildlife Service provide endangered species protections to the giraffe, which has suffered a precipitous decline in numbers in recent years.

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19 April 1913: Author and wildlife illustrator Ernest Thompson Seton gives a lecture in London about his first job as a ‘wolver’

Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton opened his last lecture at the Aeolian Hall, London, on Thursday with the hollow call of a wolf’s rallying cry, the reality of which sent a perceptible shudder over his audience. One realised as he told in illustration of his subject, “Animal Heroes,” the story of the French wolf which was killed in the mountains of Gévaudan, what terror “the beast” must have inspired in the hearts of the 40,000 peasants who turned out to round up this hero-murderer of a hundred children.

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Windlab's 240MW Ararat Wind Farm now operating at full capacity, powering 120,000 homes – 37,000 of them in Canberra.

Renewable energy accounts for 51 per cent of German electricity production for whole week, with total for year to date at 36.5 per cent.

Federal energy minister to lead trade delegation to Israel, including visit to what will be world's tallest solar tower.

Rocky Mountain Institute's Amory Lovins says attempts to reboot coal and nuclear power like defibrillating a corpse: "it will jump but won’t revive.”